


Our House

by sierraadeux



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Co-workers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Home Improvement YouTuber Phil, M/M, Real Estate Agent Dan, Rivals to Lovers, Slow-ish burn, They flip houses, like fixer upper but make it gay and also a romcom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:20:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26454802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sierraadeux/pseuds/sierraadeux
Summary: Enemy is a harsh word. Rival sounds so immature, like Dan’s the star of some teen drama on Netflix. Competition is close, but not quite there.In simple terms, Dan has a distaste for Phil Lester. Otherwise known as AmazingPhil in their line of business, for some reason that’s beyond Dan. What makes him so amazing anyway?There’s a reason the network wanted Daniel Howell and Phil Lester for this specific series, and Dan guesses there’s really only one way to find out that answer.orAnd they were co-hosts. Oh my god they were co-hosts.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 152
Kudos: 207





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> so hi i've been writing this for quite some time now and am _finally_ releasing it into the world.  
> this was written for the 2020 phandom big bang (my first ever!!) and was beta'd by [plandaii](https://plandaii.tumblr.com/) and is accompanied by [lovelydeps](https://lovelydeps.tumblr.com/) incredible art!!! Love yall sm!!  
> Check out Eli's art [here!!!](https://lovelydeps.tumblr.com/post/629248110405763072/omgthey-were-cohost)  
> and yes, title is absolutely nabbed from our house by crosby stills nash & young which reminds me if u wanna bop my casual playlist i spun on repeat while writing this you can [here!!](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0f2oEfzcRGQhJSKQpbRE3D?si=xtTgd4LSTDSiBsjGIOlzhw)

August rolling to an end calls for the break of many routines. It’s not necessarily unwelcome, quite the opposite actually, but it always takes some getting used to. 

Sometimes, Dan briefly wonders to himself how life would be if he were living in a climate in which the passing of time wasn’t measured in four distinct seasons. Routines would rarely falter. Which, in theory, sounds quite blissful, quite easy. But he reckons it’s more of a grass is always greener idealization that shines strongest in the hottest peaks of summer and the dark, frozen nights of winter. Both seem endless in the moment—seriously, it’s beyond Dan that he’s still living in an old flat that amplifies the temperature of the sun tenfold—but they do end. It’s a constant routine in and of itself, one far older and more reliable than any of the routines Dan sets for himself. Debatable given the way the planet is treated, but he digresses. 

So the change in routine is really another routine, and that brings Dan comfort. 

It’s less unusual that Dan is the sole being in the office, swaying back and forth in his rolly office chair with the constant, subconscious movement of his foot against the carpeted floors. God, he hates wall to wall carpeting. But office space in central London is expensive, and hell would freeze over before he complains about the carpeting they aren’t allowed to rip up when the rest of the building is near perfect and _suspiciously_ cheap. 

If there are stains from some sort of murder or ancient cult ritual hidden under the grey polypropylene carpet squares under his feet, Dan doesn’t wish to know. He’ll gladly let that be an area of ignorance. 

They had just recently closed on not one, but two, properties. They were the culmination of bidding wars in January, renovations that managed to sneak their way into the hot summer days of July, and _finally_ summer showings that seemed endless—until they did actually end the previous week. Though in this line of work none of it was entirely out of the ordinary. Working through the summer always leaves his team extra sluggish, so it’s not unusual for Dan to usher them out of the office for a paid extended weekend. 

And it is definitely not uncommon for Dan to not heed his own instructions, sticking around in the empty office reading and replying to emails. He can still see the square glow of his desktop computer’s screen faintly on the white wall in front of him in the few brief moments he actually looks up. 

What is actually unusual though, or at least something he hasn’t been able to appreciate for many months now, is the wide open window beside him. London is noisy. Of course it is, why wouldn’t it be? But he doesn’t see the increased decibel levels of the city as a con when it’s accompanied by a surprisingly refreshing breeze. A reminder that summer is coming to a close, another change of seasons to adjust to. 

Dan smiles to himself as the cooler air dances around his face. He feels that almost giddy excitement for the nearing arrival of autumn as he closes his eyes and savours the moment. If he also sees the glow of his computer screen behind his eyelids—well, actually, maybe he shouldn’t ignore that. 

With a deep exhale, he lets himself lean back in his chair, sliding down into a much worse position for his spine as he loses the internal debate whether or not to stay in office for another hour to finish catching up on his inbox. Maybe, just maybe, he can admit to himself when a break is needed. Now is probably one of those times, lest he wants to find out if his mum’s nagging about his teenage self spending twenty hours a day with his eyes glued to his computer screen would actually destroy his eyesight. He doesn’t think glasses would suit him or his aesthetic, and he’s already in denial about how he’s not getting any younger. Best not poke that downward spiral with any more sticks. 

Dan briefly wonders if the blaring, honking traffic of the city below him could be considered ASMR as he lets himself melt into the plush faux leather of his office chair. He should really get up, shut down his computer, and lock up the office for the weekend, but he instead savors the moment for a few more minutes. 

He doesn’t fall asleep. He absolutely doesn’t fall asleep. He just drifts into a familiar daydream of plasterboard and frivolous garden koi ponds with his eyes still shut. Definitely not asleep at all. 

The startling marimba of Dan’s ringtone takes him out of his daydreams better than any car horn could. He jolts up from his recline and scoots forward to swipe his phone off the desk he’s somehow managed to roll a decent distance from. When he sees his assistant’s name on the screen he isn’t at all shocked, if there’s one thing less surprising than Dan working when he shouldn’t be, it’s the people he's hired doing the exact same thing. 

They wouldn’t call themselves workaholics, because none of them thought that to be true. They’re all just very passionate about what they do. It’s what makes Dan’s job feel like so much more than what it is exactly—a _job_ , _work._ Of course it is both of those things more than anything else, but the stark contrast of the complete dread he would feel waking up every day for a shift at ASDA, or _god forbid_ the year he entertained the idea of law school, is exactly that—stark. 

It’s hard work, but it’s good work. It’s work he’s passionate about, and it’s something that he actually _wants_ to be doing. 

So when the words come out of his assistant’s mouth—tinny through the phone speakers that have far more water damage than they should for a piece of technology touted as water resistant, but that’s more Dan’s fault than anyone else's, he needs to belt his tunes _and_ have his showers at a steamy, scalding heat—Dan shoots up out of his chair far more quickly than his jaw had slowly dropped while he processed them. 

As Cara continues to speak, it’s really a shame the cameras aren’t already rolling. The perfect record scratch, freeze frame opportunity is missed as Dan’s face goes from shock, to delight, and back to shock again before settling on a disappointed distaste. 

“I work alone,” is all he says, sitting back down in his desk chair from where he’d just bounced up in joy. He crosses his arms for the additional dramatics, even if he’s the only one aware of it. 

“Daniel, you literally had thirty people on payroll at your last build.” 

Dan huffs, rolling his eyes to no one but himself. “That’s different and you know it. Contractors and employees aren’t _partners_. I can’t work without full creative control.” 

Cara clicks her tongue. “This is a career changing opportunity for you.” 

She’s right, Dan knows she’s right. 

“Can’t I do it alone?” 

“It’s one house. One special that will open up so much for you.” 

“You already asked?” 

“Mhm.” 

“Fine.” 

Cara makes an excited noise over the phone and Dan cuts it short. “That wasn’t a _me agreeing_ fine, that was an _I’ll think about it_ fine.” 

After a sigh on the other line he adds, “Did they tell you who the other person is?” 

“I know what house it is,” she dodges the question. “You know that old Victorian? The one just out of the city. On Cherrybrook.” 

“You’re shitting me.” Dan’s already shaking his mouse, his computer screen coming back to life. He clicks through a few meticulously organized folders until he’s found what he’s looking for. 

“I’m not,” Cara says. 

“I’ve been trying to get my hands on that flip for years,” he hums as he clicks through his files. 

“I know.” 

Dan sighs. It’s deep and long and somewhere in the back of his mind he knows he’ll be looking back on this moment in hindsight, swearing at past Dan for ever agreeing to give up half of his creative control on a build. But he can’t say no. Not when it’s the house he’s been waiting to be on the market for years, the one that he heard rumors of the owner finally selling only to find out a few months back that it was privately sold. Not when the biggest home design network is apparently that buyer and they want _him_ to flip it. 

Okay, well, not just him… but maybe it won’t be so bad. And even if it is, it’ll be worth it, right? These are two dreams packaged up into one big box dropped on Dan’s lap, he can’t say no. He would be out of his mind to say no. No amount of stubbornness or unwillingness to relinquish any creative control could convince him to pass up this opportunity. 

With an eye on the picture of the house he just pulled up and two fingers pinched at the bridge of his nose, Dan sighs, knowing the decision is made. 

“I’ll do it,” he vocalizes it. 

“Yeah?” Cara sounds cautiously hopeful. Dan tries not to huff out a laugh. 

“Send me over the contracts before I change my mind.” 

“Faxing them to you right now,” Cara says as Dan hears the rustling of papers and a few beeps over the phone. “Oh and Dan? Before I let you go…” 

“Mhm?” 

“AmazingPhil is your partner.” 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Dan groans to a dead line, because of course he expects no less. That’s quintessential drop and hang up information. He knew this was too good to be true. 

Enemy is a harsh word. Rival sounds so immature, like Dan’s the star of some teen drama on Netflix. Competition is close, but not quite there. 

In simple terms, Dan has a distaste for Phil Lester. Otherwise known as AmazingPhil in their line of business, for some reason that’s beyond Dan. What makes him so amazing anyway? 

It’s well known that the two men don’t like each other. Maybe it’s a bit of a personal vendetta. Maybe Dan _is_ that immature. But he’s hated Phil ever since he moved his company South and disrupted the housing market that Dan used to be the king of. 

It’s not like Dan didn’t have competition before Phil. It’s always been a precarious game to play being in the real estate business, but for some reason Phil _consistently_ goes after the same houses as Dan. The ones no one else wants—or, used to want, with the addition of Phil. Though they’ve never actually met, Dan doesn’t have enough hands to count the amount of bidding wars the two of them have gotten into. 

Needless to say he’s less than thrilled. Honestly, he wants to rip up the contract and say no. But that _would_ be childish. It would be a waste of the biggest opportunity he’s ever been offered. 

Against Dan’s better judgement, after having a bit of a fit alone in his office and pouting for a good hour, he eventually stalks down the hall to snatch the papers out of the fax machine and scribbles his name on eight different dotted lines. 

Phil Lester be damned, there’s nothing stopping Dan from renovating his dream property. This could be the magnum opus of his entire career, he’s not going to let one man-shaped road block spoil it. 

Even if Dan still dreams of that little cottage Phil outbid him on in an all cash offer two years ago—its now bright green door and blue trim mocking him every time he passes the property when he drives up to his nan’s. Such a disgustingly ugly color combination. Dan squishes up his nose in distaste at the very thought of it as he drops his pen on his desk. 

No, he won’t let a silly rivalry ruin this for him. 

Dan gives the preliminary contract another once over—apparently remnants of his law courses still kick around in his brain every now and then, but he won’t ever dare call them useful—before faxing it back. With it he sends a silent plea to the universe that this isn’t the greatest mistake of his career, or life, and turns on his heel to lock up the office the second his finger is off the big, green send button. 

With the cool, late summer breeze on his face as he exits the building and the harsh buzz and click of the door locking behind him in his ears, Dan wishes he lived close enough to the office to walk. It’s really turning out to be a beautiful evening, the afternoon’s earlier rain showers seemingly taking whatever dry heat that was lingering with them. He also wishes he could drive with the windows down, but the air really is anything but fresh in the surprisingly not congested traffic on the way home. 

Driving—that may be the biggest offender on Dan’s long list of things he’s overwhelmingly guilty about, but apparently not _so_ overwhelmingly guilty that he does anything to change them. It’s up there with the handful of long haul flights to Los Angeles for real estate conferences every year and his diet that he’d like to call vegan, but is more _vegetarian until Domino’s is involved_ than anything else. Though, to be fair, he has made a conscious effort to cut back on not entirely necessary trips ever since he realized taking a boat across the Atlantic really wasn’t any better. And, Dan taps his fingers against the wheel to the song blasting through his speakers at a red while he looks up to recount the days, it _has_ been around three weeks of no slip ups veganism. So he’s been doing decently alright on the not completely drowning in guilt about his own carbon footprint front lately. 

Not like he wants a prize or a pat on the back or anything. Cutting back in other places, and donating to offset as often as he can, helps him feel just that teeny tiny bit less guilty at finally owning a car in the city after far too many years of hour long tube commutes to the office and the exponentially worse combined cab, tube, train nightmare commutes to some of his past job sites. Living in a building with a parking spot included in the lease also helps. When he runs out of justifications he can always offset it with the guilt of paying for, and therefore wasting, the spot if he didn’t make use of it. 

It makes sense at this point, having the car, even if it means he’s contributing to the very reason why he can’t roll down the windows. _Cities,_ he sighs. 

Dan only stews a little over the reminder as he sings to himself all the way through the traffic home. 

Dan’s office definitely puts his apartment to shame. He guesses it’s to be expected with the difference in neighborhoods. As well as the fact that he’s paying a hell of a lot more for a fraction of the square footage in comparison, but he can never help the sigh or droop of his shoulders every time he shoves his key into the door and barely wins the battle of jiggling the handle until it finally pushes open.

The building is incredibly old and is far less taken care of than it should be, but it does have hardwood floors over carpeting. So it has its wins. 

Or maybe win—just the one win. Dan huffs as he climbs the two flights of stairs to the door of his flat. If he were less out of shape, maybe taking the stairs would be better than the ominous clanging of the office lift that they’ve always questioned, but have never really gotten a clear answer about. But that still won’t stop him from groaning about the lack of one in his apartment building, even if it’s not that far to climb. 

The flat’s layout is incredibly weird. Sometimes Dan finds himself getting lost even though he’s lived there for years. 

He doesn’t light the fireplace in the lounge anymore after his landlord stopped by with a less-than-convincing muttering of, “ _gas leaks fixed_ ” and left with no other explanation. Dan wasn’t even aware there was a gas leak to begin with. 

The walls are thin enough to hear every single detail of his neighbors’ lives, yet somehow thick enough that the entire apartment becomes hotter than Satan's ballsack the second summer hits. Dan often slams his face into the stupid clear door to the kitchen. _Who the fuck thought that was a good design idea?_ And if he soaks in the bath he barely fits in for more than twenty minutes it drips down into the flat below his. Not to mention the fact that the bathroom is literally on its own floor. _Seriously, who the fuck does that?_

The window in the office doesn’t close completely, and Dan has resorted to keeping that door shut with a few towels shoved in the crack under the door to combat the spiders and other various bugs that come through it. That’s their room now, and he’s fine with it really. He made his peace a year ago as he lugged his gaming computer and monitors downstairs to the spare room next to his bedroom that he had no other use for. 

There was once an idea for a roommate, but he guesses the spiders will do. 

And besides, the rent is decent. The aforementioned gas leak probably has something to do with that, but Dan won’t think too hard about it. He’s managing keeping his business more than just afloat while also putting money away for the day he’s ready to find a place he’s truly proud to call his home. He’s managing quite well without any human roommates chipping in, so it’s fine really. 

Picturing the ways in which he would tear down certain walls—all of them, if he’s being honest—and redo the entire maze of a floor plan is a good way to pass time as well. 

They say to not bring work home, but when you work on homes for a living that line is basically dental floss. 

Dan once again ponders how satisfying shattering the glass of his kitchen door would be while he sets water to boil and dumps in the remainder of an open box of pasta once it’s rolling. He decides to pour himself a glass of wine after an ample amount of time of staring into the boiling pot. 

If it’s in celebration or preparation of what’s to come, he hasn’t the slightest clue. All he knows is it’s probably in his best interest to bring the whole bottle of rosé into the lounge with him, so he does. 

In a routine that comes as easily as breathing, Dan settles into the spot on the sofa that hugs around him perfectly, folding his legs up before covering his lap with the furry blanket he keeps slung over the arm of the sofa for this exact purpose. It’s too big. The sofa, not the blanket—well actually the blanket as well, but that’s the opposite of a problem. Dan had splashed out on it after his first big sale, before the car, with the goal in the back of his mind that one day, he’ll have a lounge big and cozy enough to properly house it. But for now, it sits in the cramped room, memorizing the shape of Dan’s body—completely out of place in a way that’s only fitting for Dan’s weird-ass hodgepodge of an apartment. 

With a warm bowl of pasta resting on his knee and a full glass of wine pinched between his fingers, Dan purses his lips at the television, debating what he’s in the mood to watch. 

He always does this. Spends a significant amount of time blankly staring into whatever is on the stove or in the oven when he could instead be spending that time sorting out what to watch. Then by the time he actually decides, once he’s got himself too comfortable on the sofa to get back up, his food is no longer hot. 

This is less of an issue in the hot summer months, but apparently it’s also less of an issue in this moment as something instantly pops into Dan’s head. There’s no switching between five different streaming services after scrolling down every single one. No deciding on settling in with the evening news only to want to throw the remote at the screen—and actually go through with it a few times—five minutes in. This time there’s only a truly bad idea and a hand that slides into his jeans pocket on its own accord, pulling his phone out and connecting the YouTube app to mirror the TV. 

_What did I get myself into?_ is the question of the hour running circles around Dan’s head, so he guesses it isn’t entirely the worst idea in the world to seek out some answers. And luckily, Dan knows exactly where to go. 

Phil Lester. AmazingPhil. 32 years old. Independent real estate and renovations based in London. Known primarily for his modern eclectic style and do it yourself repurposing. 

Dan hasn’t really looked him up in a while, he doesn’t even think about him much besides the all too often groans of finding out he’s once again beat him out on a property. In fact, as Dan types the username into the search bar, he reckons the only time he has ever actually _seen_ the other man was years ago upon the rising buzz of Phil’s name in the area. A morbid curiosity led Dan to a DIY home improvement YouTube channel. 

It’s interesting, being that they’re in the same line of work in the same city yet they’ve never encountered each other in person. But Dan has a habit of keeping to himself, so it isn’t much of a surprise or any conspiracy to start writing home about. 

Dan thought it was a joke at first, all those years ago, looking at the jet black emo fringe, goofy smiles, and shocked faces in the thumbnails of the videos on his page. He soon enough learned that there is an absolute underestimated powerhouse behind those silly videos. Nothing about him is a joke at all. 

Not like Dan _liked_ anything Phil did, or does. He doesn’t. He actively hates that anyone thinks it’s okay to ruin his favorite sleek modern minimalist design style with brightly colored patterns and weird knick knacks—never mind getting people to actually _pay_ for it. 

So he doesn’t like it. He just… can have respect for the hustle while also vehemently disliking the man for disrupting the routine of his business. 

And also for the ugly blue and green color scheme on that cottage Dan really wanted. Fuck that color scheme and fuck the guy who thought it looked anything but atrocious. 

Even if that guy is… 

_Holy fuck_ , Dan thinks. 

And then, “Holy fuck,” Dan says aloud, filling the quiet apartment with his voice for the first time that evening. 

“He’s _hot.”_ Dan gapes at his television screen as the first suggested AmazingPhil video starts up. 

Dan’s phone gets tossed to the side of the sofa as he huffs and crosses his arms over his chest, almost knocking over his teetering dinner in the process. Maybe it’s a bit childish to be mad at a person who has really done you no wrong, besides give your business a bit of competition, but hell if Dan isn’t going to be put out about the fact that said person is smoking fucking hot. He’s definitely allowed that petty anger as he sorts out whether he wants to squint angrily or gaze longingly at the television. 

How dare he be hot? Dan’s almost a little bit _offended_ by it. 

It’s not like Dan wasn’t aware the guy was mildly attractive—the handful of older videos he watched years ago awakening _something_ in him that he was not too keen on dissecting at the time. But _wow_. If glowing up was an Olympic sport, Phil would take home the gold. 

Dan’s done a bit of his own as well, the kind that lets him freely gawk at his television screen without that gripping, twisting of shame in his stomach. He loves the absence of that feeling, basks in it a little as Phil rambles on and starts tossing things around on screen. 

His cheekbones are sharper than Dan remembers. His eyes, glinting in the lights behind the camera, are far more blue. They actually seem far _more_ than blue, but the quality of the image prevents Dan from investigating further, lest he stoops as low to get up off the sofa and bring his face right up to the television. 

Dan isn’t stooping that low. 

It doesn’t make sense. The stark black fringe Dan has had in his head is now pushed back in a way that looks effortless. As the man on the screen starts to list off the materials for whatever project he’s doing—Dan is far too preoccupied to pay attention to those details, or even check the title of the video—hints of a reddish ginger tone near the base of his scalp shine through. There’s even a shimmer of a few silvery greys, and Dan doesn’t care to recognize or even acknowledge the small whine that leaves his throat at the sight of them. 

Dan stabs into his bowl with his fork, angrily chewing his food so dramatically he would probably roll his eyes at himself if he were an onlooker. As much as his feelings towards _AmazingPhil_ have never been positive, he can’t seem to look away. 

And when he’s left with an empty bowl and another video gearing up to auto-play, Dan simply leans forward to pour himself another glass of wine. The next video plays. 

And the next. Then the one after that. 

At least it’s character development, Dan grasps at straws to rationalize to himself. The fact that he’s recognizing that he’s attracted to the man on his television screen and not explaining away that he’s just jealous of him. He’s accepted that about himself now, he’s proud of it even. But that isn’t going to stop him from seething a bit as he watches video after video. 

Sure he’s hot, but that doesn’t mean Dan has suddenly stopped hating him. 

Or well, not _hating_ him, but whatever rivalry he’s built up between the two of them that leaves the taste of blood in his mouth. And not necessarily metaphorically, what with the embarrassing amount of times Dan has managed to break through the chapped skin of his bottom lip with his harsh bite to stop the spew of obscenities he always wants to shout whenever he gets the news that Phil has swiped a property out from under him. 

Maybe there is some actual hate in there as well now, upon his realization that he’s been subconsciously biting at his lip for an entirely different reason. The second he notices, Dan’s bottom lip springs back from between his teeth. It’s not yet bleeding, but the imprint of his bite lingers as long as his thoughts. 

_God,_ how he wishes it was just jealousy. That would make all of this so much easier. 

As his bowl becomes empty and there’s no longer wine to tip into his glass, Dan finds himself laughing. Genuine laughter and snorts of disbelief fill the room while videos continue to auto-play. Phil is funny, hot _and_ funny. Dan has to remind himself that this is clearly just a persona that’s being put on for entertainment purposes—lest he do anything drastic, like start to like the guy. 

He starts to understand why the network wants Phil for this series besides the decently sized audience he has. He’s genuinely entertaining. Even if it’s entertainment in the form of Dan shrinking back into the sofa cushions with his blanket held up to his eyes in sheer cringe at most of the DIY disasters and near-death—or less dramatically, near loss of fingers—clumsy accidents Phil has and keeps in his videos. 

It turns out the “Why I Went To Hospital: Glueing My Hand To A Doorknob?!” antique restoration video isn’t at all clickbait. 

Alongside, ‘ _Who the fuck forgets they just put glue on a glass doorknob?’_ and also ‘ _Why the fuck would anyone be bedazzling an antique doorknob?’_ another question kicks around Dan’s head a few times. If he can see the appeal of this quirky YouTuber for a renovation series, why Dan? 

Dan doesn’t have any sort of social media following in the millions, nor does he have on-camera experience. Unless you consider the one incredibly cringe television advert he spent way too much of their marketing budget on two years ago—that Dan would very much like to bury the existence of—to be his breakthrough into the acting world. Which, for the record, absolutely no one should. 

The question sits with him as he finally pulls himself away from the television, as he scrubs his plates and then his teeth, and as he stares up at the dark ceiling above him with his soft duvet pulled up to his chin. He has quite a few theories. Maybe it’s because they’re the two top players in the same area of the same age. Maybe there’s nothing deep about it at all and someone at the network just threw a couple of darts at a board of house flippers. Maybe it’s because Dan is far more professional and experienced at actually renovating and flipping properties—the nitty gritty beyond just surface level fun DIYs. That theory makes him feel a little smug. There’s nothing wrong with knowing your value, as long as you’re not too cocky about it. Dan walks that line incredibly carefully. 

There’s a reason the network wanted Daniel Howell and Phil Lester for this specific series, and Dan guesses there’s really only one way to find out that answer. 


	2. Chapter 2

The house is outside of the city, a bit of a drive but not so far that Dan thinks he won’t start to dread it after a few trips back and forth. Traffic getting out of the city is never going to be enjoyable, but once he’s through it the tension in his hands loosen and he clicks the volume button up a few notches with his thumb. 

Commutes like this are honestly enjoyable. Dan’s come to realize that they allow for a guilt free chunk of time to do nothing but listen to music or whatever podcast he’s been into. He’s quite bad at that, if he’s being honest—taking time for himself without feeling like he’s wasting time or being selfish when he could otherwise be working or doing something _actually_ productive. Whatever that means. 

He got so bad at taking time for himself that a few months back he actually dropped a few hundred pounds on aquarium equipment to start aquascaping like the YouTube videos he got into watching after having them suggested on his Instagram explore page. He knew he needed to get a hobby outside of work, and he was captivated by the care and research that went into it, so he decided to try it out for himself. It’s a hobby that he sometimes finds himself treating like it’s a job, but that’s another story for another day. 

Personal time, that’s something he definitely needs to improve upon. It doesn’t help that he’s taking on a new job amidst business as usual. He’s choosing to ignore that nudge at the back of his brain. 

Dan interrupts the directions coming from maps to ask Siri to set a reminder for him to make a new playlist when he gets back home tonight. He’s not yet sick of the songs that are shuffling through as he drives, but he associates them far too much with the peak of summer and previous renovations. This feels like a new chapter—a new budding season, a new house to flip, a brand new opportunity—and new chapter’s always require a fresh soundtrack. 

It’s still fairly warm out by the time Dan pulls into the bumpy drive. The broken stone paving overtaken by weeds turns into a mostly uneven dirt path that jostles him around as he slowly drives over it. He opts to keep his sunglasses on when he steps out of the car. 

He rolls up the sleeves of his striped jumper, squinting behind his shades to regard the property in front of him. It’s similar to almost every other first viewing of a flip in the sense that it’s far more dilapidated than the pictures he’s seen—one’s that were most likely taken twenty years ago before ugly unnecessary updates or nature deciding to take the house over for itself. Just from a first glance, this property seems to be a heavy dose of both. Most looking for a quick buck in flipping and resale would shy away, but this is Dan’s bread and butter. He loves a challenge. 

The front garden is overgrown, filled with hedges and bushes that haven’t had a trim in at least a decade, though Dan would bet on two. Vines have completely overtaken the face of the house, looking less like some cottage daydream and more like a structural nightmare. Sure, climbing ivy can be beautiful, but all Dan can see is cracking, damaged brick the plants are making a home in and spreading apart further, and a mildew disaster waiting to happen—if it hasn’t already—because of the exceptionally rainy climate and the large tree he’s parked beside that shades the whole front of the house. He starts calculating costs in his head, worst case scenarios of all the broken bricks they’ll uncover when the plants are removed, but then, he catches himself. This isn’t a normal flip and, as he learned from the many conference calls and legal meetings over the past week, budget isn’t his main focus. 

That’s where the similarities end and the differences begin. Because Dan isn’t alone on the property, and it isn’t because he’s brought any of his employees with him—it’s just him. No, there’s an entire production crew buzzing about, going in and out of a few vans parked on the property, strapped to or standing behind intimidatingly large cameras, and battling the breeze blowing by as a few set up a white canopy tent. 

It’s all very overwhelming and new, but as he scans the area and spots someone hunched over under the tent, and more importantly the dark steaming liquid pouring from a large canister into their cup, he can’t say he hates it. He’s definitely never had coffee on demand at a flip site before, and though he may not speak the language of television production, coffee is universal. 

Dan’s about to wander forward, towards the faint nutty breeze snaking its way up his nose, when all coffee related plans are halted by someone with a clipboard in one hand. Their other hand is thrust out towards Dan, stepping right up in front of him. Information is fired off at a rapid pace after a brief formal greeting that Dan finds hard to keep track of as he’s passed off to more and more people. More clipboards, and headsets that make him wonder if he’s actually being spoken to or not. 

Does he know the schedule? He thinks so. A lint roller does a pass over his jumper. Is he allergic to any cosmetics? Probably not. His glasses are taken and an incredibly soft brush swipes some unknown powder across his forehead and over his nose. 

A mirror is held in front of his face while he’s asked if this is how he likes his hair. 

It’s brown. A bit of a golden glint to it with the sun that peeks through the trees around them. The curls are defined, albeit a bit shorter than usual—he had his hair dresser ‘round a few days ago in preparation. Does it look good? Does he like the way he looks? 

Yeah? Maybe? He’s starting to forget his own name, if he’s being honest. 

It’s… overwhelming, to say the least. 

“I’ve heard it’s much easier to breathe if you actually let it in _and_ out,” a deep voice with a slight northern lilt says by his left ear. Dan has his arms out awkwardly, looking forward stiff as a board as a crew member, who actually somehow seems to be _more_ nervous than Dan, runs a mic cord under his jumper. 

Dan is suddenly aware of the harsh pressure of his teeth digging into his bottom lip, as well as the breath of air he’s been holding in. He sets them both free as he looks to his left, seeking out the voice addressing him. 

His breath catches—completely counterproductive—and he barely even registers the pat at his pocket and “ _all set”_ said to him while his eyes rake down entirely on their own accord. 

Phil is… taller than he expected. Dan’s no stranger to people looking up at him, but when his eyes flick back up he’s met with a lopsided smirk and only the slightest of chin tilts. Instinctively, Dan drops his shoulders, letting out the tension of standing like a statue while getting mic'd up. 

His shoulders are also broader than Dan made note of while watching his videos. In the full HD of reality, Dan can’t even begin to count the freckles that dot Phil’s arms. Even if he tried, he’s finding himself getting distracted by the way the sleeves of Phil’s white tee shirt stretch around the biceps of his crossed arms. 

He’s just glad Phil’s eyes are so strikingly blue, the task of picking out the few other colors he finds there are keeping his eyes up—because, lord, is it difficult to stop them from wandering back down to the pale skin exposed by distractingly snug jean shorts. 

There’s two thoughts bouncing around Dan’s one, very gay, brain cell. First, who even wears light washed denim anymore? And secondly, since when did he become such a leg guy? 

A third, fleeting thought reminds him that he hasn’t actually responded to Phil. He’s just kind of… staring. 

Great first impressions. Not like Dan cares. He hates the guy—or, whatever. 

“Phil Lester.” Phil unfolds his arms to hold out a hand. 

Handshakes, ugh. An invention designed solely for dominance assertion. The uncomfortable crushing of knuckles as a “polite” way of greeting. 

Dan holds back the instinct to roll his eyes. He needs to at least be cordial. He convinces himself that’s why he holds out his hand, and not because this guy is really fucking hot. _Definitely_ not because he wants to know what it’d be like to hold his hand. 

“Dan Howell,” he says, instead of ‘ _I_ _know.’_

He feels the wire of his mic twist and tug against the bare skin under his jumper as he reaches out, and somehow _that_ is the only uncomfortable aspect of the exchange. Phil’s hand is soft, loose around Dan’s as he shakes in a way that can only be described as gentle. No death grip, no unnecessary firmness, just a quick soft shake and a smile. 

The cord bothers Dan again as he drops his hand, and he must scrunch up his nose, because Phil clicks his tongue. 

“I can fix that for you,” Phil says, taking a small step forward with a hand out. There’s a hint of trepidation in his posture that wasn’t there before, as if he’s approaching a wild animal and doesn’t want to spook it. Dan bites back the huff of laughter that so desperately wants to come out at the thought. “Think he’s an intern,” Phil nods to somewhere behind Dan, “had to fix my own as well.” 

“Um,” Dan remembers he has a voice. He nods his head. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Thanks,” he tacks on in a slight mumble, even more distracted with Phil now solidly in his space. 

He smells a bit like coffee as he leans over, his warm breath against Dan’s jumper while he pulls the mic pack from Dan’s back pocket and fiddles with the wire. As the wind blows through their hair, there’s a layer of warm, musky sweetness in it—reminiscent of Dan’s favorite amber candle on his nightstand. He doesn’t recall it to be this dizzying though. 

Phil chatters as he works, something technical about lav mics—yeah, he thinks that’s what he calls it—and Dan’s breath catches every time the soft pads of his fingers bump against his skin. Phil lets out little squeaks and apologies as he bumbles through getting the wire untwisted—Seriously? What did that other guy do?—from around Dan’s midsection. 

“S’good you’re all baggy.” Phil briefly looks up to catch Dan’s eye while his fingers follow the mic wire down Dan’s front so it’s more taught when he slides the pack into Dan’s front pocket. 

Dan cocks his head, because he’s honestly not sure what the fuck Phil just said. 

Phil tugs on the hem of Dan’s jumper. “Hides the pack, and it’s much more comfortable to move around this way,” he explains. 

Dan hums a soft, “Ohh,” as if he understands. He could, try to, at least, but Phil is stretching back up, face to face with Dan. Phil’s fingers fiddle with the tiny mic clipped to the neck of his jumper and Dan is definitely overwhelmingly aware of his own breathing. Maybe he’s just more alert, or maybe there’s something different in the way Phil’s knuckles bump against Dan’s collarbone. He doesn’t remember feeling the similar touch of the production guy all the way down to his toes, like he does now. 

“Dunno what he thought he was doing,” Phil babbles, focused on repositioning the little clip. “It totally would’ve just gotten the beautiful singing voice of this,” Phil brushes his fingers against the fabric it’s clipped to, “scraping against it positioned like that.” 

“What is this? It’s nice,” Phil stops fiddling with the mic, but he still has a hand toying with the collar of Dan’s jumper. Dan wants to lean into it, feel the brush of Phil’s skin against his own again. But of course he doesn’t, that would be fucking weird. He hadn’t thought he was _this_ touch starved, he’s got to get out more. “Topman?” Phil asks, looking back up at Dan with a smile. 

That pulls Dan back to reality. He scoffs, then laughs. 

“Topman,” Dan repeats, shaking his head. “No, it’s not Topman.” 

When Phil realizes Dan isn’t going to say anything else, he steps back, looking Dan up and down in a way that would probably heat Dan’s cheeks if it weren’t for how hard he’s trying to not let Phil affect him—in any way. Which honestly, doesn’t account for much, considering the red patch flushing on the side of his jaw. 

“That better?” Phil asks once his eyes meet Dan’s. Dan lifts his arms and does a little twist from side to side, it doesn’t feel like there’s anything under his jumper at all. 

“Yeah, wow,” Dan hums as he moves. He looks back to Phil with a small nod of his head. “Thanks.” 

“Anytime.” 

It turns out Phil is full of secrets. Beyond his perfectly arched brows being many shades lighter than the hair on his head, hair that Dan is noticing actually flashes more of a warm brown in particularly bright patches of sun, he’s quick to lean in to hum little tips and tricks about filming and being on camera while production bustles around them. Dan doesn’t know why he’s helping him, but he reckons this big rivalry he’s built up in his head is most likely one sided. There’s no dwelling on that discovery though, Dan’s brain is decidedly more interested in the secret ginger theory at the moment. 

And that has absolutely nothing to do with how soft Phil’s hair looks and how nice it is to look at. Dan is definitely nodding and taking in the tips, and _not_ actually just daydreaming about running a hand through that hair every time Phil pipes up with something else. 

The distraction of a pretty boy doesn’t lift his increasing nerves though, especially when he reminds himself staring and daydreaming isn’t professional. 

“How the fuck am I supposed to ignore that?” Dan asks, mostly just musing aloud as he eyes the cameras around them. 

“Okay, another one,” Phil says from beside him. “Don’t say that.”

“Don’t say wha- oh.” Dan’s brows furrow, peeling his eyes away from the intimidating equipment to turn to Phil with an exasperated sigh. Phil merely lifts an eyebrow in challenge, Dan doesn’t give him the satisfaction. 

Phil lifts a hand as he opens his mouth, but he apparently decides against it, closing his mouth and crossing his arms. Dan has noticed he does that a lot in the short amount of time they’ve been talking, often stopping his waving hands as he speaks to shove a few fingers in his front pockets or hug them around himself. As a fellow hand talker, Dan can’t imagine having that kind of restraint. 

“You’ve done walkthroughs with other people, yeah?” Phil asks after a moment. 

“Few times,” Dan says softly. 

Phil hums. “Right,” he says with a small huff, “almost forgot you’re the _‘I work alone’_ guy.” 

Dan’s brows tug together, “Wha-”

Phil lifts a hand from where it’s gripped at his elbow. “I do my research.” Dan’s eyes narrow a bit, eyeing Phil suspiciously, but he would be a hypocrite claiming he didn’t do the same. 

“Try to pretend it’s only us.” Phil circles them back. “Like the cameras aren’t there and we’re just having a conversation as we walk through. That’s what they want.” 

“Okay,” Dan says, slow. That seems easier said than done. 

“Don’t look so worried,” Phil smiles. “You’re already doing it right now.” 

“What?” Dan goes to cock his head, but then as the gears start moving he instead turns away from Phil, heart rate spiking when he’s met with a camera pointed directly at them. 

There’s a soft chuckle from beside him, and he feels an even softer bump against his shoulder. “They’re not rolling yet, just figuring out lighting and getting levels.” 

Dan hums as he bites his lip, eyes noticeably wider. 

What has he gotten himself into? 

Apparently, being really fucking exasperated with your co-host does wonders for forgetting about the five different cameras pointed in your face. Confessionals are weird, and the staged first impressions drive up is pretty stiff and hard to fall into, but the second they’re set free to start the walkthrough it’s really open season. 

It starts right at the foot of the slightly crumbling porch steps. Dan is looking up at the beautiful gabled roofing details, picturing the brick restored to its original glory, maybe a coat of black paint on the once white trim and ornamental bargeboard once the gnarlier bits are replaced and repaired. Beside their obvious wear, Dan doesn’t even hate the mock Tudor boards that were installed at some point on the face of the smaller front gable of the third story. It’s a hodgepodge of a few different styles, and the white doesn’t look great against the reddish brown brick, but he can see beyond it—how the accented lines accentuate those classic Victorian angles. 

This is really the shit he gets off on. 

Not literally. Well, _actually_ \- no, he declines to comment on that. 

“White would look nice,” Phil says. 

Dan stops himself from rolling his eyes, remembering he’s on camera. “I was thinking black.” 

Phil makes a noise from beside him, then steps back a few paces to squint at the front of the house. “Really? That dark?” Phil cocks his head. “I always try to lighten up houses. Make them bright.” 

“It wouldn’t- wait,” Dan pauses, shaking his head. “Are you talking about the trim?” 

“The brick,” Phil corrects, walking forward to press his palm against a bit of the siding that’s exposed from the vines. “The trim needs a pop of color, obviously.” He looks back at Dan expectantly. 

Dan sighs deeply, shaking his head. “Let’s circle back to this once that’s all removed and repaired. I think it’ll only need a good power wash after that. The original brick would go well with a black trim.” 

As they put a pin in it, pushing open the crumbling front door, Phil goes on to name a handful of, honestly alarming, colors they could paint the trim instead. Dan’s a bit too busy imagining fresh, white brick with black trim to have any response beyond scrunching up his nose at the idea of _purple_ trim. There’s no way he could admit to himself that painting over original brick is a good idea, so he’s not sure why it looks so good in his head. 

“Talk about dark,” Dan whistles once they get the door open. There’s tight, closed in walls on either side of them, and the only light source seems to be coming down from the top of the stairwell to their right. 

Phil makes a gagging noise, immediately bringing a hand up to cover his nose. “What’s that smell?” he asks, voice muffled and funny by the pinch of his nose. 

“You, probably,” Dan doesn’t miss a beat

“Shut up!” Phil laughs with a shove at Dan’s shoulder. 

Dan nearly bumps into the wall beside him in the cramped space as he loses his footing. Less because of any force on Phil’s behalf, it was really quite gentle, but more because Dan has a habit of not distributing his weight equally amongst both feet while standing. 

Then, as if he’s only suddenly become self aware, Phil looks at Dan with wide eyes, a bit horrified. But Dan’s already playfully shoving back at him, and whatever apology about to spill from Phil’s lips dies in his throat. 

Dan is smiling. It smells like more than a few somethings have died on the carpet underfoot. Phil is laughing again. Only two of those things are connected, Dan thinks. 

He can’t help but laugh, too. Maybe it’s not just their disagreements that help him forget about the cameras. 

Though he does look past the big one in front of them, at the head of production standing further down the hall. 

“Should we do that over again?” Dan asks, gesturing to the door behind them. 

“No,” the producer shakes her head, “that was perfect. Keep rolling.” 

And so they do. 

The layout of the house lends for something more kin to a dark maze than a cozy home. There’s two, cramped front rooms opening to each side of the front door, one larger room tucked behind the stairwell, and the other opening up to what seems to be the kitchen. And by seems, Dan means the back half of the bottom floor is separated into four oddly shaped rooms. One of which has a wall of cabinets hanging off their hinges and a refrigerator neither of them are too eager to open. And also, a bathtub. 

There is a clawfoot bathtub in the middle of the kitchen. 

“Interesting design choice,” Dan says, hands on his hips as he peers over the edge of the dirt caked tub from a significant distance. 

“It’s kind of nice.” 

Dan whips his head to the side, underestimating just how close Phil had stepped up next to him and nearly knocks their noses together. They both take a step back. 

“ _What?”_ Dan asks slowly, blinking to emphasize his exasperation. 

“Not in here!” Phil waves his hands around. He steps closer to the tub, crouching down next to it and—to Dan’s horror—runs a finger through the dirt on it. It reveals more of a white color. A very, very stained eggshell. 

“Not anywhere!” Dan shakes his head, wrinkling his nose as Phil draws a smiley face into the side of the tub. 

Phil wipes his finger on his shorts and pops back up. “Look at how big it is.” He gestures to the tub, waving his hand back and forth like he’s in a sparkly dress on a quiz show. 

It is… quite big. Dan has half a mind to believe he could lay back in it and still be able to keep his long legs underwater. That’s just by eye though, hell if he’ll test that theory out right now with the state of it. 

“Oh...kay…” Dan cocks his head to the side. 

“Imagine it cleaned up,” Phil says, circling around the tub on light, almost bouncing feet. “It would be the perfect soaking tub for a primary en-suite.” 

“So we’re doing a primary en-suite?” Dan raises a brow. 

“Duh,” Phil replies, looking down into the tub. 

Dan hums. They haven’t even traversed upstairs yet. He always tries to do primary en-suites though, maybe he’s just itching to push a button or two. Phil’s buttons seem like they would be fun to push. 

Phil looks over at him with a smile. “What do you think?” 

“I _think,_ ” Dan steps forward, lowering his voice, “we have a near limitless budget and there’s no reason to repurpose this haunted tub.” 

Phil clicks his tongue, his lips turning down. “Wouldn’t that be a waste though?” 

Dan hates that he’s right. He hates it viscerally. 

He sighs, stepping back while pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“Alright,” Dan says. “It’s your project though.” 

Phil beams, clapping his hands a few times before bouncing over to the back wall of the kitchen, already going on about something involving _big windows made of glass._

Aren’t all windows glass? 

Dan tries—and fails—to not look back into the big camera moving beside him like he’s breaking the fourth wall on a sitcom. It’s the first time he does it, he has no idea it won’t be the last. He snorts to himself as he catches a few crew members hold their hands up to stifle laughter, shakes his head a bit, then moves on to ask Phil if floor to ceiling windows are really practical in a Victorian house. 

“You know what? I can’t stand this anymore,” Dan huffs once they’re at the top of the stairs. He looks past the cameras in front of him. “Does anyone have gloves?” 

There’s a slight shuffle, a few whispers, then a pair of work gloves are tossed at Dan’s face. Phil jumps beside him, but Dan catches them before they smack him in the face. 

“What are you doing?” Phil asks, following behind like a shadow as Dan tugs on the gloves and makes his way over to the corner of the hall where the horrific carpet is starting to pull up. 

“Seeing if there’s hardwood under this nightmare.” Dan crouches down, huffing as he tugs hard at the exposed corner. The carpet actually _crunches_ under his fingers. Dan tries not to think about it too much, lest he start gagging on television. 

“Why would you do that?” Dan barely hears Phil’s voice beside him, too busy listening to the angelic choir in his own head when he pulls back the carpet enough to see what looks like near perfect hardwood flooring underneath. 

Against his better judgement, Dan sits back on his bum, folding the carpet corner over to run his gloved hand through the dust that’s collected there to get a better look at the floors. They look original. Dan could cry. 

There’s a sneeze by his ear, then two more. Dan snaps his head up to see Phil right over his shoulder, bending down to look at the floor. 

“Cool, but we should take this out to put down new carpet,” Phil says, tapping his foot against the gross carpet Dan’s pulled up. 

“What the fuck?” 

Phil shoots him a look. 

“ _Sorry_.” Dan glances over at the camera with a sheepish smile, then looks back to Phil with a pointed glare. “You’re joking right? Because that’s really not funny.” 

Phil’s brows tug together, his bottom lip getting involved—all pushed out and pouty. “Dead serious,” he says. 

“Absof-” Dan stops himself, eyes flicking to the camera. “Abso _freaking_ lutely not, Phil.” 

“Carpet is so much cozier,” Phil stands up straight, his hands finding his hips, “especially in the bedrooms.” 

“No.” Dan continues to shake his head as he pushes himself up and tugs off the gloves, shoving them into his back pocket in case he needs them again—and with the amount of dirt and questionable substances in this house, he probably will. “I won’t even humor you. Hardwood flooring in the entire house. Period.” 

Phil goes to open his mouth and Dan holds a hand up. 

“It’s _original!_ ” Dan huffs as he turns to keep walking down the hall, continuing the walk though with his hands all waving around in the air. “It’s a crime anyone did wall to wall carpeting in here to begin with.” 

“But-” 

“No buts! I’m prepared to die on the hardwood hill. Are you?” Dan turns back, giving Phil a challenging look. 

Phil pouts, but Dan can almost see the gears turning in his head behind it. He holds out a hand. Dan looks at it with a squint. 

“You pull up all the carpet, I get my glass walls,” Phil wagers. 

Dan goes to take his hand, but he pauses at the last second. “You already got the creepy bathtub, how is that fair?” 

“Well you should have played your cards better, bub,” Phil quips with a smile. 

_I hate him,_ Dan thinks. 

Dan sighs deeply. He holds his hand out again, taking Phil’s and shaking it once. 

“Fine. But I get another veto so we’re even.”

“Oh,” Phil laughs, bumping their shoulders together as they fall into step down the hall. “Is that the game we’re playing now?” 

“You brought it on.” Dan smiles, turning to wink at Phil before stepping into the next room. He chalks the pink he sees climbing Phil’s cheeks down to the warm, stuffy upper floor. 

There’s a lot more disagreements, and a surprising amount of compromises. Well, most of said compromises are left at a ‘ _put it into your plans and we’ll decide then’_ , but that feels like far more of a compromise than Dan’s usual stubbornness and Phil’s—not at all adorable—pouts. 

They agree on not needing the _six_ bedrooms on the top floor, making each one incredibly cramped, but Phil doesn’t seem as keen on Dan’s idea of taking out _two_ of them instead of one to expand the primary bedroom and add an en-suite and attached walk-in closet. He’s still not sold, but seems to start to come around when Dan waves his arms around in one of the smaller bedrooms, saying it’ll also open this one up as well. 

Another debate comes in the form of one of the two rooms at the front of the house already having a dingy en-suite. Phil wants to keep it as is, but gut and update it all. Dan thinks it would be better suited detaching the bathroom and cutting into the bedroom to make it a bigger bathroom for the entire floor. It makes more sense, considering there isn’t even a separated full bathroom in the house as is—just the half-bath washroom tucked under the stairs that neither of them were brave enough to step into after cracking open the door. Dan can tell he’s winning on this one, but he doesn’t gloat too much. 

Only a little. 

Okay he may or may not be fully smirking back at the camera while Phil moves on to the other front bedroom at the other side of the stairs, but that’s nobody’s business but his. And well, also the entire crew watching him, as well as the however many millions of people that will be watching at home if it gets kept in the special. And- alright, Dan’s working himself up again. 

“Forget the cameras,” he mumbles to himself once he’s turned back around, picking up his pace to catch up to Phil. 

“Phil?” Dan calls when he pokes his head through the last door they haven’t yet ventured into. He’s nowhere to be found in the small, empty room. Did he fuck off and jump out the window? Or did he just completely forget they had one more room left to see and went back downstairs? Dan doesn’t think he heard footsteps on the stairs, where could he- 

“Up here!” A voice calls from… above? Dan stares at the ceiling for a moment, wondering if there’s asbestos or something in the air making him hallucinate, but then he catches the wooden door propped open at the far corner of the room. Then he does actually hear footsteps on stairs. Phil’s head pops out from behind the door. 

“You’ve got to check this out!” Phil says excitedly, disappearing back up the stairs Dan can’t see before Dan can question it. 

The small set of stairs hidden behind the door are even more suspect than the creaky main stairway, but Dan miraculously doesn’t fall through as he carefully steps up them, crouching so he doesn’t hit his head on the low ceiling above. Once he gets to the top, he only has to duck the slightest bit in order to avoid bumping his head on the ceiling. Which is surprising given how small the space is. The roof above is peaked, and Dan realizes they’re in the little front gable at the top of the house. 

It’s dark, the only light streaming in from the small, incredibly dirty circular window to his right. And he can only see where Phil is walking around on account of the iPhone flashlight he’s holding up and swinging around. As the light catches him, Dan realizes he’s pulled out a handheld camera from _somewhere_ , babbling to it as he walks around the small space. 

It makes sense. Dan looks back to the staircase behind him, noting that the camera crew hasn’t followed them up. There’s really no space up here for more than two people—Dan and Phil are pushing it to be honest—and the crew obviously already knew that. 

“It’s kind of cool up here,” Dan says, blinking back the dust in his eyes. Phil spins and points the camera at him, the flashlight making Dan squint. 

“Radical concept…” Phil starts, stepping the few paces forward towards Dan. 

“Oh no.” Dan’s smiling though, looking behind the camera. 

Phil laughs. “Hear me out.” Dan crosses his arm and nods, encouraging him to go on. 

“I know you were about to say this is good for storage...” 

“I wasn’t-” Dan absolutely was. 

“ _But_ ,” Phil cuts him off, “it could be cozy up here, like a secret little nook.” Phil spins around with the camera, gesticulating to the empty, dusty room. “And I was thinking about how perfect it would be if we knock down the walls of the room below, open it up, expose the stairwell, and maybe do built-ins along the remaining walls.” He turns back to Dan with wide, excited eyes. “Make it like a proper little landing library slash sitting area, since it’s such a small room. I don’t think it would work as an office, and plumbing would be a nightmare to make it into another bathroom, and this hidden spot up here would make it so-” 

“Phil,” Dan interrupts. He’s honestly starting to get out of breath himself just watching Phil talk at lightning speed, barely blinking or breathing between his words. “I think I like it.” 

“You think?” Phil tries not to sound hopeful. 

“Put it into your plans how you’re imagining it. I’ll keep it in mind with mine, and we can see how we like it then. Okay?” 

Phil beams, stepping forward to squeeze a hand at Dan’s shoulder. Dan tells himself the feeling in his stomach is due to the excitement of a new build, nothing more. 

“Okay,” Phil nods with another squeeze before letting go and bounding back down the creaky stairs. 

If there’s one thing they, thankfully, agree on without any fanfare, it’s blowing open the bottom floor. As they step through the maze of rooms to get to the back garden, they both nod at each other, reiterating how much better it will be when the back of the house is opened up into one big kitchen and dining area, looking out to the overgrown back garden. Though, by the time they’re done with the house, it won’t be overgrown at all. 

Dan had so many preconceived notions, so many first day visions that he’d end up driving home from the first day white knuckling his steering wheel out of frustration. 

It isn’t like that at all. He feels light, excited. He even stops off for some cheeky drive through chips on the way, humming along to the music blasting through his speakers with a happy mouth full of grease. The grip of his right hand is only tight around the little cup of ketchup he wedged between it and the wheel for dipping. 

He gets this way when he’s really keen on a project. This house has been on his dream list for years, after all. 

Maybe this won’t be a complete disaster. 


	3. Chapter 3

Rain comes down in sheets against Dan’s windshield. Of course he forewent an umbrella when he left, the light drizzle seemingly posing no threat under the cover of the car park behind his flat. He didn’t know the sky was going to completely open up halfway through his drive to the office, and now he’s here: biting his lip while he stalls in his car, debating if it’s better to make a run for it or wait to see if the rain will pass. 

He’s foolish to think the rain passing is even an option. It only seems to come down more enthusiastically while he waits, as if it’s personally mocking him. With a deep inhale and a quick pat at his pockets, the soft, muffled patter of rain opens up completely as Dan pushes open his car door. He holds his hands over his head, feeling the water collecting in the streets splash against his shoes as he runs. 

It’s a thirty second endeavor all together, and Dan is only slightly damp by the time he rushes through the door of his office building, chest heaving with exertion while he pauses in the lobby to catch his breath. 

It’s a good thing he’s early. Even better that they’re filming at his office today. 

The lift makes its usual clangs and whirrs, and there’s familiar greetings off his tongue once he’s up at Howell Realty. It’s routine—despite the fact that there’s absolutely nothing routine about the production and camera crew that start to trickle up as Dan’s shoes dry by the radiator in the little office kitchen nook. 

It isn’t the first time he’s paced his office in his socks, _don’t ask,_ but it is the first time he’s done so with more than just his own employees present. 

He reminds himself—someone else’s voice in his head— to forget about the cameras. 

There’s something nice about having people here _specifically_ to sort out his hair and makeup. He doesn’t want to say he’s getting used to it, getting chatty with the two people that fluff his hair and poke at his face, but it’s appreciated when he walked into the office looking kin to a cat stuck in a bathtub. Now there’s less shine to his face, the circles under his eyes from long nights fretting over floor plans are brighter, and his rained-on hair is brought back to life before it even had the chance to go frizzy. 

Dan is checking himself out in the shining reflection of the microwave—the very one he stayed late yesterday scrubbing at, as if the camera crew would even come in here—whilst he tugs his dried shoes back on when there’s a commotion by the lift. Dan does a one-footed bounce across the small space, a finger still jammed between his heel and the crunched up material of the back of his shoe, to peek his head around the corner. 

Of course it’s Phil. 

Dan was wrong. Compared to Phil’s sad, soggy state, Dan looked nowhere near the shivering, wet animal he thought he did after coming in from the rain. 

Phil is sopping wet. Absolutely dripping with his deflated hair falling over his forehead and in his eyes, despite the big rainbow umbrella that keeps popping back open every time he wrangles it closed again. Dan is suddenly very thankful he didn’t have to witness whatever went on in the lift before this—though he makes a mental note to inquire about the security footage at a later date. 

It’s the kind of scene where you feel compelled to click your tongue, or push a bottom lip out in a frown with a pitying ‘ _Aw.’_

Dan does neither of those things. He tugs at his shoe with a wobble, finally getting it on right, and runs a _much cooler than he feels_ hand through his hair as he steps out from the kitchen.

“Let me help you with that.” Dan outstretches a hand for Phil’s dripping umbrella, because apparently no one else here has plans to, and Phil looks up at him with those wide, blue eyes. They’re more frantic than usual. Phil gets the umbrella closed only for it to shoot back open with a squeak and jump from both of them. He hands it off to Dan with a pout, water droplets flinging off onto the carpet and Dan’s newly dried shoes and jeans. 

Dan wrangles the umbrella with minimal damage, getting the strap velcroed around before it tries to open again. He pops it into the stand by the door, next to all of the other one’s belonging to Dan’s employees who actually had some common sense when they left their houses this morning. 

He brushes off the soft thanks from Phil, and offers to take the damp portfolio bag from his shoulder. 

“Good thing it’s waterproof,” Phil says as he hands it off, hair and makeup immediately rushing over to him with concerned faces and a towel that’s definitely too small for the amount of water currently in Phil’s hair. 

Dan huffs out a small laugh, setting the bag down on the long table in the center of the office next to his own tubes of plans. Well, not necessarily next to, more like a significant distance away from—where Dan is sure it won't get anything else wet. 

When he turns back around, Phil is fully being poked and prodded by four different crew members. He looks like a lost puppy, a wet lost puppy, and Dan can’t hold back his laugh. He at least has the decency to hold a hand over his mouth. 

Phil’s jumper looks soaked to the bone, a small dry patch by the collar revealing it’s not actually meant to be as dark of a blue as it currently is. 

Dan sighs. “I have a couple of shirts in my office for client meeting emergencies, if you want to borrow one.” 

Phil goes to shake his head, Dan can see it happening when his lips part—probably something about not wanting to be a bother on his tongue—but his mouth closes with a pointed look from the head of production. Phil nods his head. 

“Thanks,” he says softly.

An even softer, “That’s alright,” leaves Dan’s mouth before he turns and heads down the hall to his office. 

Dan blames the breathless, dizzying rush he feels when Phil tugs his wet jumper off right in the middle of the office before taking the shirt in Dan’s hand on all of his rushing up and down the hall. It almost works. Dan _does_ feel guilty about the gym membership he pays for and only uses once a month if he’s lucky, but he’s not fooling himself that easily. It has nothing to do with cardio, or lack thereof, and everything to do with so much pale skin. Broad shoulders. _Chest hair._

His mouth is a bit dry. _Water_ , his brain supplies as he watches Phil’s slightly shaky fingers slide buttons through delicate fabric. _Yes_ , his brain also supplies, Phil is wet. 

No, Dan shakes his head. He takes Phil’s sopping jumper from the crew member it was passed off to. 

“I’ll pop this on the radiator to dry,” Dan explains, clutching the cold material in his hand. He catches Phil’s eye as he looks up from his careful buttoning—as if the whole thing will unravel if he goes any faster. “Would you like a hot coffee or tea?” 

Phil purses his lips, his chin going back down to his chest to look at his fumbling fingers. “I think too much caffeine is what got me into this mess in the first place,” he chuckles. 

Dan huffs, that pesky fond smile pulling at his mouth. 

“I’ll make you a nice herbal, then?” 

Phil looks up. Two different hands are messing with his hair to get it up off his forehead. Dan bites back the comment on his tongue. The one about how he looks like the person in his old videos with it plastered down like that. Phil doesn’t need to know that, he doesn’t need to know the amount of hours Dan may or may not have spent watching those videos. 

“That would be lovely.” 

Lovely. It’s a good word, bounces itself around Dan’s head a few times while he sets out Phil’s jumper by the radiator and turns on the kettle. He’s used it often enough. In sales pitches and at open houses, _it’s a lovely home_. Dan presses his hip against the counter, turning on the tap to rinse out one of the mugs left there, their usual cabinet of mugs bare from the amount of people buzzing about the office. 

Lovely flower arrangements and off-white paint choices. Lovely granite countertops and subway tile. He uses it frequently, so why does it settle so differently when all he can think about is the lovely shade of blue that makes up Phil’s eyes? 

Dan lets out a deep sigh he hadn’t realized he was holding in, rinsing the soap out of the mug with his name on it and patting it dry with the tea towel hanging by his thigh. He sets it down on the counter once it’s mostly dry, and sticks his head in one of the upper cabinets to locate the box of herbal tea. 

“Oh!” Dan jumps, holding a hand to his chest when he swings the door shut. He was so wrapped up in his own mind he didn’t even hear Phil step in. 

Phil smiles softly, a twinkle of amusement in those eyes Dan isn’t at all obsessed with. _Lovely._

“Better?” Phil asks, hands gesturing to his current state. Dan tosses the tea bag into its mug, then turns to fully look Phil up and down. 

If it’s on offer, how can he refuse? 

It’s definitely a mistake—Dan’s been making a lot of those lately. Phil looks _good_ in all black. He looks _good_ in Dan’s nice shirt, even if Dan himself wouldn’t dare button it all the way up to the top like that. Somehow it only looks good on Phil. More than good, really, but Dan doesn’t think he has a word for it yet. He at least knows it wouldn’t be lovely. That’s too sweet of a word for the thoughts Dan is having. 

With reddening cheeks, Dan pulls his eyes away from the stark contrast of the dark collar of his shirt against Phil’s pale neck. It works. He chuckles at the rain spots on Phil’s glasses. The rest of him looks as if he’d never gotten caught in the downpour, hair dried and back up off his forehead, face matte in the way Dan knows is from a few layers of translucent powder. The only evidence lies on the radiator behind Dan and the streaks on the glass between Phil’s frames. 

“You’ve still got…” Dan points by his own eyes, then at Phil. 

“Oh!” Phil giggles, his cheeks pushing up to his eyes until they crinkle. They stay there as he takes off his glasses, his eyes going squinty as he brings them down to the hem of Dan’s button up. He pauses with the material between his fingers, looking up at Dan sheepishly. 

Dan shakes his head with a smile, stepping forward to snatch the glasses out of Phil’s hand. He wipes the lenses on his own—far less delicate, but equally as expensive—jumper. 

He holds them up to the light once he’s thoroughly wiped at them, checking for any remaining spots. 

“Here,” Dan says softly, handing them back. If he takes a few mental snapshots of Phil’s _absolutely not cute_ squinting eyes before Phil puts his glasses on, that’s between Dan and his morally questionable conscience alone. 

Dan quickly looks back down at the counter, begging the empty mug and dry tea bag for an excuse for how red he knows his face is. Neither of them have any answers, obviously. He’s saved by the hiss of the kettle. 

As he prepares Phil’s tea, Phil’s presence is there, but not looming in that uncomfortable way when someone is watching you move about in silence. Dan doesn’t dissect it. Instead, he hums and scoops two teaspoonfuls of sugar into the darkening liquid when he asks if Phil wants sugar and the answer he gets is “Lots.” 

“Milk?” Dan asks, side stepping to wrap around the handle of the small fridge. “Sorry, we’ve only got almond and oat. Bunch of nutty vegans we are here.” 

“How millennial of you,” Phil says. He shakes his head, leaning into Dan’s space to wrap both of his hands around the mug. 

“Oh, shut up.” Dan laughs, the sound as weightless as he feels. He follows the mug, eyes fixating on Phil’s fingers tapping against his name, not looking elsewhere even when Phil steps out of his space and lifts the mug to his lips. He hums a small sound of contentment around the steaming liquid. Dan has to actively stop himself from copying it with his own. 

“Should probably get on with it, right?” Phil smiles, turning on his heel to step out of the kitchen—the mug pulled out of Dan’s line of sight. 

“Yeah,” Dan hums softly, to himself. He lingers for a moment, watching Phil introduce himself to the new faces he sees, before shaking his head and following behind. 

Whatever this is, he has to snap out of it. 

It’s easier said than done. There’s no good reason for the two of them to be pushed up shoulder to shoulder at the long meeting table—well, maybe Dan’s handwriting _is_ a bit hard to read—as Dan talks Phil through the blueprints he made up. Dan feels Phil’s shoulder brush against his every time he breathes a little deeper, shifts to look at something more closely, or talks something through with enthusiastic hands. It’s nice. It’s distracting. Dan _actually_ forgets the cameras are rolling. 

“So depending on what we uncover, I say we knock out all of this.” Dan traces invisible lines around where walls once were, now a completely open floor plan between the front sitting room, and the new combined kitchen and dining. “If this is structural,” Dan loops back to the front sitting room, “we can do cased openings here. Keep it flowing, not crumbling.” 

Phil hums. “I was thinking the same,” he pokes his finger at Dan’s, moving it to trace an L shape where the room corners off in the original layout, “but I’d put money on this being a support beam. We would have to keep at least this much of the wall.” Phil traces a shorter line, making a wall between the sitting room and the kitchen. 

“How much?” 

“We could do a big cased opening here,” Phil loops back to the wall by the front door, “and half the size here.” He loops back to the kitchen wall. 

“No.” Dan laughs, swatting at Phil’s finger, making it land near where he planned out the big island slash breakfast bar. “I meant, how much money are you willing to bet on us not being able to take out both walls entirely.” 

“Oh.” Phil hums, stretching up from their hunched over position to rub at his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Twenty quid?” 

Dan holds a hand out between them. “You’re on.” 

“I showed you mine, you show me yours,” Dan says with a nod towards Phil’s unopened plans. There’s a muffled snort of a laugh and Dan looks at Phil with narrowed eyes. 

“What?” 

Phil holds both of his hands up to his face, erupting in giggles he just can’t seem to stifle. It’s only then that Dan realizes what he’s said. 

“Phil,” he whines, looking from him, then dead straight to the camera—exactly as he’s told not to do. “This is a _family_ show.” 

“Is it?” Phil asks through giggles. 

Dan shakes his head disapprovingly, though the smile he’s fighting gives everything away. He makes eye contact with the producer to the left of the camera, and though she’s smiling, Dan knows this is yet another moment the poor editors will have to cut out. 

He’ll have to send them a gift basket or an edible arrangement for the amount of crude language bleeps he’s requiring alone. 

“What the fuck Phil,” Dan says once Phil sets his plans out over Dan’s blueprints. He immediately looks to camera, apologetic, before rephrasing his words. “Did you do these yourself?” he asks, barely ghosting a finger over the white paper, feeling what looks to be colored pencil against his skin. 

They’re fully colored, stylized sketches of the house. Or, well, of what the house could be. Three large sheets of paper cover Dan’s plans entirely—the exterior, the first floor, and the second. 

“I never learned all of that.” Phil lifts one of the papers to reveal Dan’s plans. All of the meticulously measured and labeled lines, perfectly straight, all angles accounted for. “This is easier for me to imagine, makes more sense.” 

Dan hums. Logistically it makes no sense. You can’t build a home from wonky lines and scribbled pencils of every color in the rainbow. There needs to be order, actual plans builders can follow, not… 

A little brown cartoon dog staring into a pond with purple fish in it. Do they even make purple koi fish? Is that even a koi fish, or just a really large goldfish? Dan ponders those questions instead of thinking too much into the fact that he briefly mentioned wanting to put in a water feature in the back garden, and Phil didn’t actually brush the thought off like he thought he did in the moment. He doesn’t think about that, though—doesn’t let himself. 

As much as Dan wants to hate it, tear into it with all of the criticism that should be on his tongue, there actually isn’t any criticism there. He finally, truly gets how much painting the brick white would work, though the trim being the same color as the mutant koi definitely needs some changes. He can almost feel the air flowing from Phil’s interpretation of the floor plan, see the light from the multi-level walls of windows at the back of the house that Phil tried to draw into Dan’s plans, and hear the wind gently blowing through the newly landscaped trees. The fencing around the back garden really does look good. It definitely shouldn’t be pink though—even if it matches the front door. 

“Is that millennial pink?” Dan lifts a brow, tapping at the door. 

“Mhm!” Phil nods his head enthusiastically, flashing Dan a bright smile. 

Dan snorts. “Absolutely not.” 

It’s not the first, and it won’t be the last, but just like all of the others it’s lacking that distinct air of finality. As Phil allows him to color in all of the gaudy purple trim with black on the stipulation that he listens to Phil’s other color suggestions for the door, Dan might actually be learning to compromise, but he won’t dare admit it. 

He also won’t admit how much he likes the idea of a sage green when Phil pulls out his big Pantone color ring from his bag and holds the shade up to the drawing of the door. Dan’s never done a door any color other than a natural wood stain or black. There’s no good reason for him to like the green. And yet as Phil bumps his shoulder against Dan’s a few times, wiggling the paint chip around, Dan knows they’ll be ordering that exact shade. 

Speaking of shades… 

Dan reaches across the table, sliding one of Phil’s designs over the exterior one. It looks to be the top floor. He looks it over with a furrowed brow for a second, noting how Phil drew in the detached bathroom and the large en-suite and walk-in closet, how he went as far as scribbling little titles onto the books he drew sitting on the built-in bookshelves at the now opened up landing nook. It’s perfect. Except for one not so small detail. 

Dan pokes a finger at the flooring, shaded entirely in green. 

“What’s this?” he asks, cocking his head to look at Phil expectantly. “Please tell me this isn’t _green carpeting_.” 

“It isn’t,” Phil replies easily. Dan lets out a relieved sigh, glad to know it was just Phil having fun with colors and not him suggesting they put in green carpeting after Dan explicitly said- 

“It’s _yellow_ carpeting,” Phil corrects with a smile. 

“One: no. Two: that’s not yellow, mate.” 

“It’s yellow.” 

“That’s,” Dan jams his finger against the offensive carpet drawing, “literally green!”

“Okay Dan, if you wanted green carpeting all you had to do was ask.” 

“I do not-” Dan huffs, pinching the bridge of his nose. He doesn’t know why he’s smiling, his lips are tugging up entirely on their own accord. 

He looks Phil dead in the eye. “No wall to wall carpeting. Say it with me.” 

“No wall to wall carpeting,” Phil repeats, like he’s just been told off in primary school. He punctuates it with an eye roll. Dan shoves at his shoulder. 

Those plans are pushed to the side, their only addition being big red letters in Dan’s messy handwriting scrawled right down the hallway: **_HARDWOOD NOT CARPET!_ **

“I literally cannot read your handwriting, what does this say?” Phil taps at the large, very clear words. 

“Oh, shut up.” 

“Hey,” Phil says softly, pulling Dan out of his frantic scribbling. He looks away from his red pen edits, turning his head only to be met with Phil’s face _right there_ , looking at him intently. 

“Hello?” Dan matches his whisper. 

Phil reaches a hand up to Dan’s cheek. Dan holds his breath. 

“You’ve got…” Phil trails off, staring intently at Dan’s face while his thumb shakily swipes just under his eye. He leans back as he pulls his thumb away from Dan’s face, but it doesn’t go with him. He holds it up right in front of Dan’s lips. 

“Make a wish,” Phil instructs. 

Dan looks down, going a bit cross-eyed as he attempts to focus on the little black line on Phil’s thumb. An eyelash, of course. He looks back at Phil, incredulously. 

“Go ahead, go on,” Phil presses, smiling. 

Oh, fuck it. 

Dan’s eyelids fall shut. He breathes in and blows out in a little huff. 

“Well, what did you wish for?” Phil asks once brown meets blue again. Dan shakes his head, twirling his pen in his hand and looking back over his notes. 

“Won’t come true if I tell you.” 

Dan could have told Phil, it was a silly wish anyway, he knows it won’t come true. With the way Phil’s eyes crinkled up though, sparkling as Dan leaned into his silly game, he’s glad he didn’t. It takes a great deal to get the image out of his head, to stop himself from doodling hearts over his i’s. It’s all too much really, and he quickly buries it in red pen—making Phil’s abstract colored pencil ideas into actual measurements they can work with. 

He can work with this. He really can. 


	4. Chapter 4

There’s scaffolding up around the front of the house. Small dots of moving bodies up high, cutting away at the overgrown vines, keeping production on track. Dan has to actively remind himself that it’s not much different to when he hires outside crews to do various jobs. They’re doing exactly as he instructed. He doesn’t need to be getting a complex about it as he stalls in his car, looking up at the workers making quick progress of revealing the brick siding. 

The early morning air bites at his cheeks when he finally pushes his door open, a reminder that summer is well and truly gone, and Dan makes a beeline to the craft services tent. For coffee. The pep in his step is for coffee, not at all because he spots Phil already there, animatedly chatting to a few crew members with a bagel in one hand and a sloshing coffee in the other. 

Dan is surprised they even dare stand within the splash zone. He huffs a little laugh out of his nose as he sticks a cup under the coffee spout, watching out of the corner of his eye. He was running late this morning, barely managed to down half a scorching cup in his kitchen after spending far too long debating on what outfit was most appropriate for the weather and for demolishing a house. 

No one should ever spend an hour in front of their closet only to tug on athletic leggings and the plainest of plain black long sleeves, but Dan’s always dared to be different. He paid for it in not stopping to properly caffeinate on the way, not wanting to be any later than he already was, and he’s paying for it dearly now. He staves off the headache behind his eyes as he burns his tongue on the steaming liquid. 

He refills his coffee once he’s tipped two thirds of it down his throat. This time he actually takes the time to pour in a sugar and a few splashes of oat milk. He doesn’t bother to stir it, sipping far more slowly as he susses out the array of muffins set out further down the line. When he looks up with a pistachio muffin in hand, using his teeth to peel back the wrapper, he’s met with an amused smirk. 

“Rough morning?” Phil asks, his eyes crinkling further behind his steam fogged glasses. He doesn’t seem to mind it, continuing to hold his paper cup up to his face, both hands wrapped around it, like he’s savouring the warmth it’s omitting. It’s not adorable. Seriously, it’s not. 

Perhaps it would make more sense for Phil to be wearing something other than a tee shirt with the cold breeze blowing past them, Dan notes as his eyes drop down—most likely failing at disguising checking him out with a large bite of his muffin. 

He’s wearing _actual_ dungarees, loose and worn with a strap sliding off his right shoulder. Dan wants to step forward and hook a finger under it to push it back up. Almost as much as he wants to put down his breakfast and rub his hands up and down Phil’s arms, warming him up as he watches him jolt with a small shiver. He only thinks about doing those things though—thinks about how Phil’s freckled, goosebumped skin would feel under his own—while his eyes make their way all the way down to the messily rolled up cuffs of Phil’s dungarees. There’s a lavender sock pulled up over one of his ankles, rainbow stripes over the other. 

What was Dan thinking about again? 

Right. The sensibility of wearing short sleeves in chillier weather. Phil wouldn’t need to be clutching onto his coffee like it’s a space heater in the dead of winter if he dressed for the weather, but he seems perfectly content as he is. 

Phil’s just like that, Dan’s realized. Always a little bit different, not seeming to care what anyone may think. Even if it’s Dan giving him a lifted brow at all the dried paint splatter on the light denim of his dungarees. It’s hard for Dan to admit, but Phil makes them work. 

“Better now,” Dan hums once he’s swallowed. A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, he buries it in his coffee. There’s nothing professional about the feelings swirling around in his stomach. 

They chat about the progress being made on the exterior of the house while Dan makes his way through his coffee and Phil makes his way down the sweet pastry trays on the craft services table they’re leaning against. Dan, mostly, keeps his eyes to himself. It’s easier to do with the distraction of noting all of the brick and siding that needs repair with every bit of greenery that’s dropped to the ground. 

“Hate to admit you’re right about the white,” Dan says. He bites at his lip as he looks at the uncovered brick. “Matching the original brick would be a pain in the ass.” 

Dan turns to look at Phil when he doesn’t respond. 

Phil’s looking at him funny. Or, well, moreso at his legs than him. He’s biting at his own lip, eyes flicked down, not even noticing Dan’s waiting for a response. 

Dan clears his throat, ducking his head down in an attempt to catch Phil’s eye. “Earth to Phil,” he says as he waves a hand. 

Phil’s cheeks go bright pink, the same shade as his bottom lip that’s released from between his teeth. 

“Are you wearing leggings?” 

Dan looks down at his own legs, as if he’s forgotten what he’s wearing. He looks back to Phil, crossing his arms. 

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “Is that an issue? You know legwear doesn’t have a gender-” 

“N-no,” Phil cuts him off, quickly shaking his head. “I just-” Phil laughs, his cheeks going impossibly pinker as his eyes trail back down. Dan hates that he feels his own heating up. “I’ve never seen someone wear stretchy leggings to demo day before.” 

Oh. 

“Well, you’re demo day-ing wrong then.” 

“Am I?” Phil challenges. 

“Mhm,” Dan hums, setting his coffee down to make a whole show out of doing a lunge. For no reason other than the mood Phil seems to put him in—knocking down walls that aren’t made of brick or plasterboard. Professionalism flies out the window around Phil. He kind of fosters the environment for Dan to be a little bit of a shit. Dan takes the opportunity gratefully. 

There’s a slight burn in his glutes as Dan looks up at Phil, both of them winded with laughter. 

“Alright, help me up.” Dan reaches out a hand. “I’m terribly unfit.” He really should be using that gym membership he pays for. 

Phil’s hand is cold, but soft, and he tugs Dan up with a force that surprises both of them—Dan all but slamming into Phil’s front. Dan’s chest rattles as they both huff and laugh, not at all enjoying the two seconds in which it’s pressed right up against Phil’s before he steps back into his own personal space. 

Dan picks his coffee back up, trying to hide his blush behind it and failing miserably. 

“We should probably get mic’d up,” Phil says, looking around as if he’s just realized there are indeed other people buzzing about around them. 

“Yeah,” Dan hums into his coffee. “We should.” 

They get poked and prodded at, mic’d up only for Phil to fix them both after the sound guy steps away. It’s starting to feel routine. Coffee cups and safety goggles pin down each corner of the edited plans they’ve already gone over twenty times, the wind threatening to blow them away. Surprisingly, there’s no last minute changes, only a slightly pouty Dan as they’re told the inspection reiterated Phil’s suspicion that the structure can’t support completely blowing out all of the front room’s walls. 

If his fat, pushed out bottom lip is only for show, Dan won’t admit it. He really doesn’t have to though, he _did_ include Phil’s more conservative cased openings in his final plans. A lot of Phil’s ideas made their way into his plans, actually. They’re not really his plans, Dan reminds himself, but _theirs._ Each of them have had an equal hand, and somehow it has managed to look cohesive. He can only hope it translates beyond the blueprints. 

Dan always feels a bit silly in work gloves and safety goggles, but he wins the heated, ten minute long round of rock paper scissors, so there’s little to pout about. His mismatched outfit is the least of his worries when he’s armed with a black can of spray paint, ready to mark up everything that needs to be torn down or taken out. Though it doesn’t quite stop him from rolling his eyes everytime Phil tries to save something silly from demolition, be it the rusting kitchen cabinet handles or the cracked mantle above the fireplace in the front room. 

“You know,” Dan says, tapping his foot as he waits for Phil to finish unscrewing the handles so he can close the doors and mark them up. “I thought the videos were like… a bit. Or a persona.” 

“Huh?” Phil hums. 

“You’re just like your videos,” Dan explains. “Eclectic.” 

Phil turns around at that. A small screw from the handle he’s just taken off falls to the ground with a tinny clatter. “You watch my videos?” A wide smile spreads across his face. His eyebrows bounce around, teasing, and Dan immediately regrets saying the observation out loud. 

“No, no.” Dan shakes his head. He sighs. “Well. Yes. But for research purposes,” he corrects quickly. 

“Research purposes,” Phil repeats. Dan nods, looking away. 

That shit-eating grin never leaves Phil’s face. The suggestion to split up to cover more ground, be more productive, gives Dan an out—a chance to breathe. 

Dan draws his big X’s and Phil starts making an alarmingly large keep pile in the front garden. Dan catches him carrying out various bits of wood and metal everytime he looks out a window. It’s a give and take, he guesses. And he definitely isn’t biting back smiles. He definitely doesn’t find Phil and his antics endearing. 

Not one bit. 

Phil finds him in the smallest room on the second floor, stepping around the big camera in the doorway that’s living its last moments just as Dan is finishing his final X. 

“You two are positive about removing this room?” their producer asks from behind a clipboard. “I know you agreed it’s too small, but it’s honestly a decent size for something like a family nursery.” 

“Oh,” Phil laughs. Actually he giggles, to be accurate. Dan is all about accuracy. “I’m gay so my mind always goes to: how can I made the garden better suited for a pack of dogs, not: where’s the baby nursery going to go.” He says it so casually, an air of laughter around him as he shrugs off the suggestion, looking from the producer to Dan for his input. 

“I- uh.” Dan’s mouth goes dry while he stumbles through a few syllables. 

Ground control to major Dan, hello? 

Dan stops himself from shaking his head, knowing that won’t be any good at clearing it. He clears his throat instead.

“I think if we’re going all in on this, we should _really_ go all in and make something unique. You know?” Dan looks to Phil, then the producer with his hands gesticulating in front of him. “I think opening up this room would really help the flow of the house. Make it feel like a real home. And not all these rooms plopped down.”

There’s a hum of agreement from Phil, and their producer nods her head. 

“You guys have full creative freedom. I’m just making sure.” 

Dan looks around the room, mostly so he isn’t looking at Phil. It wouldn’t necessarily be a _bad_ thing to be looking at Phil, rather too much of a good thing. Too much of something Dan wants to be looking at. Something Dan just plain _wants._

He can have none of that though, so he looks around the room instead. Small, cramped walls with large black X’s looming over him. He wants them gone, maybe then he could breathe. 

“Someone wanna grab me a sledge?” Dan spins around with the question, looking at the crew behind the cameras. 

An assistant is back in a flash, handing off the heavy object. It feels good in Dan’s hands as he grips it properly, flexes his fingers around it. 

It dawns on him that he doesn’t have the slightest clue where to start. 

“I’ve never done this before,” he says, looking to Phil—for reassurance, but he won’t admit that. 

Phil cocks his head to the side. “Really?” 

Dan nods. Shrugging with the heavy sledge hammer in his hands almost feels like a workout. “Was more efficient to hire a crew to demo. And that way I knew it was getting done properly, and not fu- messing anything up.” 

“Efficient isn’t always fun.” Phil smiles. He steps forward and nods his head towards the wall that leads out to the hall. 

Dan flicks down the glasses perched on the top of his head with one swift nod, eyeing the wall through their thick, slightly scratched up clear plastic lenses. 

“Go on.” Phil nudges him. “Give it a whack.” 

With Phil, and the cameras watching, Dan does. He swings his arm back, gripping tight around the handle of the sledge hammer and smacks it against the wall with a loud crack. It sticks into the hole it created, and Dan wiggles it out with a grunt. Once it’s out he whips his head around, looking at Phil behind him with a proud smile, like: ‘ _Hey, look what I did! I did that!’_

“Come on,” Phil smirks, “you can do better than that!” Phil bounces across the room and grabs the second sledgehammer that was brought up, spinning towards Dan with it. The entire camera crew steps back, dispersing to safer distances, and Dan tries not to laugh—or get hit himself. 

Phil makes a whole show out of lifting the hefty hammer—either adjusting his hands or showing off, Dan can’t be too sure—and he winks at Dan in a way that looks more like he’s trying to get construction dirt out of his eyes. He’s got safety goggles on as well though, so it can’t really be interpreted as anything else. Dan kind of wants to whine. 

Phil swings with a grunt that only makes Dan’s predicament worse, his arms flexing as the tool slams into the wall next to Dan’s small hole. He pulls back with another noise from his throat—Dan feels hot under the collar of his shirt, his palms are sweaty beneath his gloves—and a whole chunk of plasterboard comes flying out with it. 

Phil looks at Dan with raised brows and a cocky grin. Like, ‘Look what _I_ did.' 

“Alright, _show off_ ,” Dan mutters, shaking his head as he steps back and plants his feet firmly on the ground. With a deep breath in, he slams his sledgehammer into the wall with a force he didn’t even know he had. He’s unable to keep the big, toothy grin off his face when he pulls back and the two of them are looking through the large hole into the hallway that they created. 

They look to the side at the same time, their chests heaving from exertion are now making them breathless with their nonsensical laughter as they look at each other. Endorphins really can make you feel high. 

Dan is never hiring an outside crew to demo his houses ever again. He decides it then and there. He can’t believe he’s been missing out on this very rush this entire time. 

Through sweat, dust, dirt, and surprisingly no bodily injuries, walls come down. 

Walking through the house is easier, brighter without the dark maze of its previous layout. Dan doesn’t have to squint or scrunch his nose as much, that suspicious smell leaving out the front door with all that nasty carpet, and that makes all the difference. 

They even uncover a few gems along the way. Those big holes in the upper floor ceilings ripped further open to reveal the previous owner had installed dropped ceilings. The entire second floor feels ten times larger as he walks through one last time, looking up at the arched ceiling and beautiful exposed trusses in what will become the primary bedroom suite. 

Just like most of his projects, with walls blown out and construction mess everywhere, it somehow looks both less and more like a home than before. 

Filming is done for the day, most of the crew is gone, and the remaining people are packing up and trickling out. Of course Dan’s hung back. Control freak would be the term. Slap it right under his name on one of those _Hello My Name Is_ tags. Dan wears it with pride. 

He’s just making sure everything is perfect, because he’s going to have to let it go and leave it in the hands of the build team. Apparently some type of movie magic is going to happen while Dan and Phil spend the next week most likely arguing over paint colors and appliances, and the next time he drives up to this house it’ll be a true blank slate for design. Nerves and excitement dance around his stomach as he makes his way back down the stairs. He could use an antacid, to be honest. 

It wouldn’t really help, but it’d at least give him something to chew on. His teeth tug at the skin of his lip instead. 

There’s something that’s been bothering him, beyond his perfectionism—okay, _because_ of his perfectionism. He squints at the front door as he descends the stairs, then stops to squint a little bit more once he’s on the main floor, stepping back and forward again, crouching down and looking at it from different angles. It just looks… a little bit off. 

Dan grabs a measuring tape from the pile of tools in the newly opened up front hall and makes his way out the door. He’s settling this once and for all. Just Dan and his comically large tape measure. 

Thinking mostly everyone had already left, Dan is spooked by the figure on the porch. 

“What are you still doing here?” 

Phil lifts his chin. “I could ask you the same thing.” 

Dan huffs out a laugh. “Hey, since you’re here.” He looks from the smear of soot over Phil’s left eyebrow, to the soft pink of his lips—because he’s fucking feral, or something. “Can you give me a hand?” 

A smirk tugs at Phil’s lips, and Dan flicks his eyes back up only to be met with a cocked brow. 

“What?” Dan laughs, looking at him funny. 

Phil shakes his head, grinning like he’s got a secret. “Nothing.” He doesn’t lose his amused expression as he steps right up into Dan’s space, and Dan has half a mind to whack him with the measuring tape. 

He does—pulling it out and giving him a little smack on the shoulder with the yellow blade. “Hold this here.” Dan taps at the door frame with the end of the blade. “I won’t sleep tonight if I don’t check if it’s symmetrical.” 

Phil does as he’s told, holding it in its place as Dan jogs backwards against the side of the house.

“You’re so weird!” Phil calls after him. 

“I’m thorough!” Dan calls back, stopping at the edge of the house and making note of the number. He repeats it under his breath as Phil calls him weird again. Dan flicks him the finger and Phil gasps in mock offense, though he doesn’t even blink or need instruction when Dan makes his way back, moving and holding the tape to the other side of the door frame. 

“I’m also right!” Dan shouts from the other end of the house, looking down at the numbers. The door is off centered by a good ten centimeters. The measuring tape retracts as Dan walks back to the porch, the metal tip slapping against the casing with a loud smack that makes Phil jump, even though he was the one to let it go. 

Phil listens from the doorway as Dan pops back into the house to procure a pen and a few tools, explaining how the entire house will be off balance if they leave the door as is. 

“Is it really that big of a deal?” Phil asks, stepping back once Dan makes his way back out. 

He drops his tools by his feet and makes quick work of measuring and marking off where he wants the new frame to be. “I’m not even going to humor that.” 

“Are you only taking from one side?” Phil’s right over Dan’s shoulder, his breath at his neck as he watches Dan meticulously triple check his work. “Because the door won’t fit.” 

“Of course the door won’t fit, Phil.” Dan rolls his eyes, turning to look at him. He taps him on the nose with the back of his pen. He’s not sure why he does it. Phil scrunches up his nose. It’s cute.

“We weren’t going to keep the door anyway,” he says quickly, bending down to grab something to pry the frame off with. 

“We weren’t?” 

Dan shakes his head. Once he’s stretched back up, he taps at the door with the metal in his hand. Chips of wood fall to the ground and Dan taps his feet together to get the dust from them off his shoes. “Look at how decayed it is, and I doubt it’s original.” 

Phil hums. “I guess you’re right.” 

“Usually am,” Dan says, shooting Phil a wink before he starts to pull at the frame. 

“Cocky,” Phil says from somewhere behind him. 

Dan smiles, to no one in particular as he’s looking at the side of the house. “Thanks.” 

He works in a comfortable quiet, Phil stepping back and mostly watching once Dan assures him he doesn’t need help. It’s a nice change from the day he’s had, full of constant conversation, a full, loud house, and people buzzing about every which way. Now it’s just him and Phil, and the occasional commentary about getting a new custom fit door or a pause to look up into the trees at whatever bird Phil is pointing out. 

It’s a nice change. 

During a few minutes’ span of concentrated quiet between the two of them, Phil’s voice breaks through. Dan immediately registers it as not speaking to him. Phil’s tone is all off, sounding more like he does when he’s directly speaking to a camera. 

Not like that’s something Dan’s picked up on, or anything. 

“As you can see, Dan has decided to wage war against the front door.” 

“Who are you talking to?” Dan asks, calling over his shoulder as he pulls at the frame. 

“The people!” Phil says it like it’s obvious. 

“Very specific, thank you.” Dan rolls his eyes. One last huff finally gives way to the frame, Dan pulling it off and turning to look at Phil with a raised brow. As he suspected, Phil’s holding that small camera in his hand—the one Dan has seen more than a few times now. He hasn’t really questioned it. 

He’s not going to now either. He’s too focused on the task at hand and the prospects of last night’s leftovers waiting for him at home for dinner. It’s not all that late yet, but it’s been a long day. He’s quite sweaty, a bit gross covered head to toe in dust and dirt, and the catered sandwiches for lunch were no match for a day of physical exertion. 

He wonders just how far is too far when the thought of eating curry whilst in the shower floats above his head. 

With a few funny faces in front of, and behind, the camera, Phil slides it back into the front pocket of his dungarees, dutifully taking Dan’s iPhone and taking down all the measurements and notes barked out at him. Dan may be going a bit overboard, but he wants to make sure he’ll have everything he needs to update the plans and order a new custom door. And besides, that’s kind of like, his only personality trait if he’s being honest. Being over the top, that is. 

There’s a moment when Phil hands Dan his phone back and pulls his own out from his pocket, where Dan becomes hyper aware of the fact that they’re alone. His eyes swipe behind Phil—from the big dumpster bins and piles of construction debris, to his car in the drive. It’s now the only one. 

Dan looks back to Phil, knowing he’s about to do something ridiculously stupid, but for whatever reason, he can’t stop himself. That seems to be becoming a common occurrence lately. 

“Do you need a ride?” 

Phil looks up at that, his hand clutching his phone pausing mid-air on its way up to his ear. “I was just-” Phil talks slow, cutting himself off as his phone quietly rings between them. He looks down at it as if he’s briefly forgotten what a phone is before seemingly remembering and ending the call. 

“I was just calling a cab to the train,” Phil finishes his thought, looking up at Dan no less confused. “To the city?” he asks, cocking his head to the side as he does. 

Dan thinks he looks like a golden retriever, just a little. But he doesn’t say that aloud. 

“Of course to the city,” Dan says, stepping past him and hopping down the porch stairs. 

He looks back to Phil, still on the porch, when he’s halfway down the path and doesn’t hear a second set of feet crunching against the dirt and gravel. “Well, are you coming?” 

Phil shakes his head, then his eyes go wide before he nods with far more enthusiasm. It’s a roller coaster, really. “Yeah, yeah. Thank you,” he says, jogging down the stairs and up to where Dan’s stopped. 

Dan shakes his head as he keeps walking, looking down intently at his feet. He doesn’t know why he’s grinning, ear to ear. He swears—he doesn’t know why. 

“You can uh-” Dan nods his head towards his phone in its little holder, “put whatever you want on.” He’s not sure why he says it, why he offers it up—maybe he’s just grappling at something to say, something to fill the silence, and that was the first thing that popped into his head. He doesn’t really want a stranger- _Phil_ tapping through his phone, hell even his Spotify library, yet it comes out of his mouth before he can stop it. 

“Oh,” Phil says. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Dan catches the odd look Phil is giving his phone. Perplexed, confused as if it’s the first time he’s ever seen one. Which for all Dan knows could be true. Phil is kind of weird. 

“I don’t really listen to music much.” 

Dan nearly slams on the breaks. The reminder that he’s going a few above the limit on a fairly busy motorway, and that he doesn’t necessarily want to be the start of a pile up—and, _well,_ rationality—stops him. 

“You- _wot?”_ Dan’s eyes remain wide as he briefly flicks them towards Phil to check if he’s being punk’d. His expression is similar to that of a woodland creature Dan would encounter on the opposite side of his windshield. 

_Definitely not joking._

Phil shrugs just as Dan looks back to the road. 

“Dude that’s, like, weird.” Dan feels a bit foot-in-mouth the second the words fill the car, but he can’t see Phil’s reaction. And he also doesn’t really care- _well,_ that’s not true at all. 

For some reason, he cares. A lot.

“Don’t take that- sorry,” Dan shakes his head. “To each their own,” he settles on. He keeps an eye on the road as he takes a hand off the wheel to tap at his phone, he _really_ can’t sit in silence for an hour now. 

There’s a barely audible huff of a laugh beside him. Then, a hand is batting at his own. 

“I got it,” Phil explains when Dan glances at him in question. “That stresses me out,” he adds meekly. 

“Hm. Not a car guy?” 

“Not an encouraging distracted drivers kind of guy,” Phil huffs, tapping off of maps and opening Spotify. “Actually, also just not a moving vehicle guy in general. I’ll probably vom in your backseat if I look at this for too long, so what do you want me to put on?” 

“Have your pick at any of my playlists, unless you’re into podcasts about politics or DnD.” 

There’s a snort at that. Then, nothing but silence beyond the hum of the car and Phil’s tapping at Dan’s phone screen. 

Then, Muse. 

Dan knows this playlist. It’s a good playlist, albeit an older one in Dan’s carefully curated library. It doesn’t get spun as often as it once did, more so a comfort playlist nowadays than a reflection of his current music taste. 

Dan lets out a soft, _“Huh.”_ He watches out of the corner of his eye as Phil opens maps back up, then promptly sits back in his seat, pressing his arm against his eyes. 

“You good, bud?” 

“Mm,” is all Dan gets in response. Then a soft, “I like Muse.” 

The corner of Dan’s mouth tugs up at that, he’s not sure why. “Thought you didn’t like music.” 

“I never said that,” Phil hums, his voice still a bit low and broken. 

“There’s water in that,” Dan bumps his leg against his Hydroflask in the cupholder, “if you don’t mind my germs. You sound grim.” 

“M’fine,” Phil says, clearing his throat. The sound of denim against the leather seat joins the thumping bassline and Matt Bellamy’s crooning as Phil shifts around.

“Thanks,” he says once he seemingly finds a comfortable position. “My fault. Should’ve known better.” 

Dan hums. 

It would be his luck to decide to fill his monthly good samaritan quota by giving someone a ride, and that someone not only being a person he’s not necessarily supposed to be fond of, but also apparently someone that’s prone to car sickness. He probably loses a solid ten karma points for even having that thought. Good thing all of that’s bullshit anyway. 

“So. You like Muse,” Dan finds himself saying. “I like Muse.” 

“I don’t listen to much radio stuff,” Phil says, his voice sounding a bit more human than it was a few minutes prior. “I was really into Muse in uni, and it kind of stuck with me. I only really listen to film and game scores when I want something in the background.” 

That makes Dan laugh. It bubbles up in his chest and he just can’t stop it from coming out. Because, _honestly_ what are the odds? 

“See? This is why I tell people I don’t listen to music.” 

“No, no.” Dan shakes his head. “I’m not laughing at you, just-” He snorts. “If you scrolled down like _three_ more you would have found _‘dan’s lo-fi video game soundtracks to cry to’_. One of my personal favorite playlists.” 

“ _Oh_ ,” Phil laughs. And for some reason the sound makes the air in the small cabin of the car feel lighter. 

“Sooo,” Phil says, shifting around in his seat out of the corner of Dan’s eye. “Dungeons and Dragons podcasts?” 

“Don’t nerd shame me in my own vehicle.” 

“So you’re a nerd, then?” Phil asks. 

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Dan says with a chuckle. “Real estate agents: they’re just like you,” he adds in a put-on voice. 

“Is that what you are?” 

“Didn’t do your research?” 

“No,” Phil laughs. “Google was just very vague.” 

“I don’t really know what I am. I buy houses, I flip them, I sell them. Guess the Realtor title came with incorporating the agency,” Dan says with a dry laugh. 

“Do you rent any places?” 

“Fuck no.” Dan’s almost offended that he asked. “I’m a renovator, not a monster.” 

Phil laughs loudly at that, Dan can’t help but join in. 

“You?” Dan asks. He can see Phil shake his head back and forth out of the corner of his eye. 

“No way,” Phil says. “I’d become a cannibal before a landlord.” 

Dan snorts. He looks to the side for a second, squinting at Phil. “You _aren’t_ a cannibal, right?” 

There’s a soft whack at his shoulder as he looks back to the road. 

“I only really buy tear downs or places that are barely livable,” Phil says after a beat. 

Dan hums. “Makes sense.” He focuses on the road, switching lanes for the upcoming exit.

“We’re always going after the same properties lately.” 

“Oh.” Phil laughs. “You noticed that?” 

“Of course I fu-” Dan cuts himself off, his voice far too loud for the small cabin of the car. He takes a deep breath, loosening his tightened grip on the steering wheel. “Of course I bloody noticed,” he says in a much quieter, softer voice. 

Phil just laughs. Of course he does. 

“Just a bit of friendly competition.” Phil nudges at Dan’s shoulder. Dan rolls his eyes. 

“Yeah.” Dan’s voice is thick with sarcasm. “ _Friendly_.” 

As Phil continues to fill his car with giggles—fucking giggles—Dan is sure this is all the opposite of friendly. 

What he isn’t sure of, is if that opposite is really the hate like he’d like to believe it to be. Dan doesn’t want to dissect that thought, so he focuses on the instructions from his phone instead. Though, as he does, he finds it impossible to tune Phil out as background noise. 

He might be fucked, really. Properly fucked. 

“Hey Lester,” Dan calls once Phil’s shut the door, rolling down the window. 

Phil spins around. “Yeah?” He ducks his head down into the open window. 

It’s probably a bad idea, definitely a bad idea, but Dan is sliding the small bit of paper out of his wallet anyway. 

Dan holds out his card. “Let me know if you want me to pick you up in the morning.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah… it’s good for the environment or whatever.” 

Technically the train is better, if he really wants to use that excuse. But Dan lets himself believe the additional sinner in his passenger seat somehow offsets the crime. 

“For the environment or whatever,” Phil repeats, taking the card from dan. There’s no good reason for their fingers to brush, it’s almost as though it’s deliberate. Maybe it’s just the leftover endorphins of smashing things messing with Dan’s brain. 

“Yeah,” Dan agrees. 

There’s also no good reason for him to watch Phil walk all the way to his door, yet here he is. He’s just making sure he gets in okay. That he’s safe. That’s all. 

Once the door shuts behind Phil, Dan sighs, tapping his own address into his phone before pulling away. 

Later that night, once microwave warmed curry is shoveled into Dan’s mouth over the sink and he takes a shower so long he’s sure water is starting to drip into the flat below him, Dan falls back into bed, instantly melting into his sheets. It’s early, far earlier than he ever goes to bed, but his body was absolutely begging to be horizontal, and he didn’t want to fall asleep on the sofa. It’s ridiculously comfortable and definitely big enough to be slept on, but he’s not nineteen anymore, he has to have _some_ consideration for his back. 

Dan’s body wants to be asleep, but his mind is still very much awake. So he dims the brightness on his phone and plays the scrolling game, popping between almost every app on his home screen in an attempt to keep him entertained. 

“Huh?” he hums to himself, squinting at his screen as he finally goes to send his mum those pictures of the house she asked for over a week ago, the last time they were on the phone. She’s trying. He’s trying, too. He honestly just keeps forgetting. The excuse is genuine for once. 

He, once again, forgets as he clicks out of their message thread completely to pull up his camera roll. 

There’s about twenty or so new pictures there, ones Dan knows he didn’t take himself. Not because he doesn’t believe in the occasional pocket snap—it’s happened, he swears—but because he’s _in_ these pictures. 

They clearly aren’t for measurement reference at all, if that’s what Phil was going for. Multiple shots of Dan looking all scrunchy faced with a tape measure to the door, front camera selfies of Phil mocking Dan’s expressions, and a few sprinkled in at the end that are just straight up blurry, zoomed in images of Dan’s ass. 

Dan hates how much he’s smiling. He’s definitely fucked. 

Dan favorites a few of the images, none of which include himself, before locking his phone and dropping it to the pillow beside him. 

Oh, he’s more than fucked. 


	5. Chapter 5

Staying away from the house during build week proves to be easier than expected when Dan suddenly finds himself swamped with work. He shouldn’t be surprised, deciding to dole out a few side projects while working on the show instead of halting work at his office completely, but he is finding himself splitting at the seams a bit. 

At least by the time he drops himself down into bed after going into the office early and staying back late, his body is too exhausted to keep him up into the wee hours. It’s some of the best sleep he’s gotten in months if he’s being honest. Probably problematic that it’s caused by constantly being on the cusp of overworking himself, but he’s choosing not to dissect that. Whatever helps him sleep at night. And that’s, apparently, this. 

He’s already juggling three different conversations—four, if you count the one with himself in his head—and he’s only been in office for ten minutes now. The large camera has begun to fade out of Dan’s peripheral, much like the sounds of the city out the windows, clacky computer keyboards, and any phone ringing that isn’t the one he just tossed on his desk. 

“Okay,” Dan says with authority, shaking his head until the little pinball in his brain finds a hole to plonk into. 

“Alex, yes I saw your email. Go ahead and send in that offer.” 

With a nod, there’s one less person in his office. Dan pulls the plunger back and the ball kicks around until it lands on his assistant. 

“Did you get my-” 

“Order from the printer?” Cara cuts him off, smiling. “On your desk in front of you.” 

Dan looks down. Sure enough, they’re right under where he’s just sat his coffee and his phone. He shifts his coffee off the prints, onto the glass of the table with a meek expression on his face. 

“Thanks.” Dan looks up. “Can you call-” 

“To order the new yard signs? Yep, on my list.” 

Dan huffs out a laugh, shaking his head at her. “Why are you even in here, then?” 

Cara grins. “Just like to watch the chaos.” With a wink, and a called out reminder of a meeting at noon, he’s another person down. 

The air still feels a bit hard to breathe in the small space, but as he looks around the room he reckons he can’t send off the TV crew as easily as his own employees. They fade off into the background easily enough when he finally lets himself look at the occupant of the chair in front of his desk. 

“You,” he says simply, sliding down in his own desk chair and rolling forward flush to the desk so he can grab his coffee. 

Phil lifts his brows, bouncing them a few times. “Gonna boss me around, boss?” His voice is low, unlike anything Dan’s heard out of his mouth really. It probably would be affecting him more if it weren’t for the absolutely ridiculous look on Phil’s face. 

Somehow that’s starting to affect him too. 

“Shut up and show me your paint chips,” Dan says, far too fond for his own damn good. 

The days begin and pass in a similar fashion. In two mugs of coffee on Dan’s desk and a camera in the corner of his office. In two identical paint color fan decks, and a daily argument over whose is better. Dan claims Phil’s is more faded, Phil says his is bigger than Dan’s. They both know they’re the same exact decks, but where’s the fun in admitting that? 

They’re both hopelessly stubborn sometimes. It might be making for good television, if Dan is paying any attention to that. He’s mostly paying attention to Phil. 

It’s a miracle that they managed to agree on the shade of white for the majority of the house’s walls on the first day. It’s a give and take in other places, like the two of them agreeing they’ll each get free rein on a feature wall. Dan takes the one on the first floor, in the dining room, and Phil somehow talks Dan into letting him ruin- _design_ one of the walls in the primary bedroom. 

They agree on the shade for the new cabinetry, though they don’t agree that it’s the same color. 

“I think we should go with this grey for the cabinets,” Dan says, pointing at the chip and sliding it towards Phil to look at. “I’ve been wanting to do a blue-grey kitchen for a while now.” 

Phil’s brows knit together, looking down at the swatch. “That’s green.” 

“No, the one my finger’s on,” Dan taps it a few times for emphasis, “with the soft teal shift to it.” 

Phil’s index finger joins Dan’s. “This one?” 

Dan nods. 

“That’s literally grey with a green shift.” 

“It’s blue.” Dan doubles down, looking from the color to Phil with a challenging squint. Of course it’s not the same shade as Phil’s eyes, but he finds it swirling in there somewhere. That doesn’t mean it isn’t blue. There’s many different shades of blue. 

“It’s green, but I like it,” Phil says with a shrug, a glint in his eye. Before Dan can open his mouth, Phil is batting away his hand and shuffling through the ring of colors, headed towards the pinks. “Have you given any thought to the front door?” 

Dan rolls his eyes. 

The days are long, but not unbearable. They’re the opposite, really. Dan finds them filled with laughter when they’re not filled with eye rolls. Though they start to go hand in hand after a while. He doesn’t exactly pinpoint that shift amongst the chaos. It’s probably for the best. 

They keep finding common ground in their disagreements, but not in the way anyone would think. 

“Don’t you think that fencing in the property might be a better suited decision for the homeowner?” Dan asks, both of their plans for the landscaping on the table between them. “I mean, I think it’s a good idea, but it would be a shame for it to just come right down.” 

Phil frowns down at the plans. He shakes his head. “Dog essentials,” he says. Nothing more than that. 

Dan snorts. “Okay,” he replies slowly, sitting on each syllable. “How do you know they’ll have a dog?” 

“You don’t buy a house like this and not have a dog.” Phil says it like it’s common knowledge. Dan can’t help but laugh. Phil looks up at that, eyes suddenly challenging. “I could make the same argument against your koi pond.” He doesn’t look down as he taps at the plans. His finger is nowhere near the little water feature he drew in, but he doesn’t move it. Dan finds it endearing. 

“Fair.” 

At the end of the day there’s a handshake on selfish indulgence, and—beyond Phil’s questionable plans for a DIY pergola and reclaimed garden planters—the landscaping plans are finalized. 

They, somehow, agree on appliances. 

“I think…” Phil pauses, squinting a bit as he strokes at his chin in thought. “I think I’d want my refrigerator to do my taxes.” 

Dan doesn’t even know what to say to that. 

By the end of the week, Dan has looked at so many different sage green color swatches, he’s not even sure if he knows what green is anymore. 

When he vocalizes the thought over a coffee break—Dan and Phil shoulder to shoulder in the small kitchenette, waiting for a fresh pot to brew—Phil snorts. 

“It’s not my fault you can’t see colors.” Phil nudges into Dan’s side. 

Dan sways to bump him back. “I can see colors, Phil. That’s offensive.” 

At least they agree on a shade for the door. 

The weekend goes by even quicker than the week. Which, technically makes sense considering it’s two days instead of five, but it feels as though Dan curls up in his blanket on the sofa on Friday night with Drag Race reruns and a takeaway, blinks once, and suddenly it’s Monday morning. 

Rest happens, he thinks. And he only answers three calls and responds to less than five emails, so Dan feels like he can claim he didn’t work through the weekend. All of the staging furniture bookmarked and the hours of wallpaper website scrolling in his browser history say otherwise, but Dan doesn’t think that really counts. 

Despite the earlier start, he’s surprisingly awake when he pulls up to the building that’s starting to become familiar. The man that’s tumbled right over the line of familiarity does a similar display through the door of the building upon Dan’s arrival, and Dan stops his ‘ _i’m here’_ tapping on his phone to click the door lock instead. He watches with amusement as Phil attempts to slide into the passenger seat, juggling an overstuffed backpack, two cups, and a brown paper bag that’s making the car smell absolutely delicious. 

He only enjoys the show for a few seconds, leaning over and offering his help before the floor of his car becomes a river of coffee—the smell filling Dan’s nose as he takes the cups from Phil and settles them in the cupholders. 

“I come bearing gifts,” Phil announces, still wiggling around with his bags to get his seatbelt on. 

Dan snorts. “I can tell.” He shifts out of park once he decides Phil is no longer a road hazard. Or, at least, less so. 

The first gifts come in too sweet identical coffees. Phil, unsure of Dan’s order past a non-dairy milk, got two of his usual. It’s definitely not something Dan would get himself, but he finishes the whole thing less than halfway through the drive. In the paper bag on Phil’s lap is an assortment of pastries, and Dan gets the most hilariously horrifying look from Phil when he asks if they’re vegan. Phil, honestly, looks like he’s about to cry as he apologizes profusely and Dan just laughs it off, sticking his hand in the bag to pull one out. He’s still reassuring Phil that it’s okay until well after they’re done with their coffees. 

It really is. And, for some reason, it’s not at all annoying. Dan was sure he’d made a mistake, offering to carpool them both to the flip house and losing his solitary reflective commute, but now he’s not so sure. 

It’s kind of nice actually, having someone else in the car. Even if they’re constantly trying to start up road trip games or play twenty questions. Even if they’re the one person Dan wouldn’t have been caught dead with a month ago. 

Somehow, an hour’s long drive feels like fifteen minutes. 

Phil’s second gift is much, much more sinister than a croissant with an egg wash. 

“You’re joking,” Dan says as he holds the black denim up in front of him. Phil had tossed them to him once they exited the car, with an amused smirk that Dan knew he shouldn’t have trusted. 

“Absolutely not.” Dan tries to throw them back to Phil, but they’re flung right back, smacking him in the face. There’s a giggled apology cutting through Dan’s grumbles, and he can tell Phil doesn’t mean it in the slightest. 

“You can’t paint in anything else!” Phil protests. 

“Oh, yes I can.” 

Phil pouts, his eyes going as sad as his pushed out bottom lip. It takes all of four seconds of those blue eyes to crack his resolve. Damn the growing soft spot in Dan’s chest. He hates it. 

“Alright, fine,” Dan mutters, turning on his heel to go get changed. 

They’re Phil’s dungarees—nearly identical to the pair Phil ducked into Dan’s car in, down to the matching paint stains and splatters. The only difference is where Phil’s are a light wash, bringing out the colors in his eyes, the straps Dan is adjusting are a darker, black denim. With some rearranging, he manages to get them to fit him well enough, eventually giving in and bending over to cuff them at the bottom so they don’t look _as_ weird where they fall above his ankles. It’s warmer inside the house, with the walls up and people already buzzing about, and he’s… surprisingly comfortable in them. 

But he won’t admit that to Phil, no. He’s also not going to admit that he kind of digs the vibe they have with the old, white and black striped tee he wore under his jumper today that already has a few white paint spots from previous builds. He doesn’t need Phil getting all smug about it. 

His smug face _is_ kind of cute though… 

No. Not going there. 

Dan shakes his head a bit, flicking his curls around with his fingers in the reflection of his phone before ducking out of the room he commandeered to change. What does a professional face look like? He tries to put one on, but if he’s being honest he’s starting to forget how. He ends up with something more kin to a fond, lopsided grin. 

“What _are_ you always doing with that?” Dan asks as he approaches Phil, holding a hand up to lightly bat away the small camera Phil whipped out—its lens focusing from Dan’s face to the lines on his palm. 

“BTS for the vlog,” Phil says. His playful smile disappears into a line, his eyes going softer with concern. The switch almost gives Dan whiplash. “I’m sorry,” Phil’s brows tug together as he speaks, “I never really asked, did I? Does it bother you?” 

Dan mirrors his expression, though the pull at his brow is more confused than concerned. “Bother me?” 

“Being on my channel…?” 

Phil’s eyes are so blue today, even in the overcast sky. Dan loses track of his thoughts for a moment as they continue to look at him all wide, looking for an answer Dan isn’t saying aloud. 

Dan does a little shake of his head to clear it. “No, no. That’s fine.” He’s still not entirely sure what he’s agreeing to. Being on Phil’s YouTube channel? He guesses he doesn’t really care. Mostly because his answer brings back that bright smile. 

“Always gotta monetize,” Phil says with a laugh, waving the camera. 

Dan really doesn’t know what he’s saying half the time, but he gets this at least. 

He crosses his arms, all fake huffy as he looks at Phil. “You’re not even paying me,” he teases. 

The smile disappears again. 

“I can compensate you for your time!” Phil says quickly. 

“No, I’m joking,” Dan says, desperate to get that smile back. “Just bants.” 

Phil’s face goes all scrunchy for a split second before smiling again. There’s a call for them by the producer somewhere behind Dan, and Phil pats at his shoulder as he walks past. 

“I’m not,” he says into Dan’s ear, squeezing just once before letting go. 

It takes a moment for Dan to follow behind. There’s no good reason for his head to be so _clouded_ by Phil. He really needs to get a grip. 

Dan decides to blame whatever spell he’s under solely on the fact that Phil’s dungarees smell very strongly of either his cologne or laundry detergent. Whichever one it is, it’s that same intoxicatingly musky sweet scent that’s starting to linger in his car, and it’s hard to keep a clear head when it’s following him around like this. 

It’s the hot guy smell. _Not_ the hot guy himself. Nor the fact that he’s wearing the hot guy’s clothes—Dan insists. It’s just the good smell that’s making him so _fucking_ giggly, so _unprofessional_ , so _playful._

The last thing anyone should be while painting walls is playful, especially when there’s a camera crew following your every move. Yet Dan can’t help himself. His feet are working entirely on their own accord as they chase Phil through the open floor plan with a freshly dipped paint roller. 

He’s just getting him back. Retribution for the long stripe of white paint rolled on from the middle of Dan’s back all the way down to the back of his left knee—Phil got him good the second his back was turned on the small step ladder in the lounge. The room was filled with shrieks in an instant. They now ring with the addition of laughter throughout the entire house as they chase each other around the bottom floor. 

When Dan corners him back in the lounge, Phil starts to manically wave his own paint roller around. Paint splatters everywhere—on the walls, the tarp on the floor, himself, _Dan_. 

“ _What_ are you doing?” It’s a question Dan finds himself asking Phil a lot. 

“Waving the white flag!” Phil continues to fling paint, Dan holds back a snicker when he catches a particularly fat droplet landing right on a camera lens out of the corner of his eye. The crew scrambles, but Phil doesn’t even notice. He’s too busy staring wildly at Dan, chest heaving while making it rain. 

“Truce!” Phil flinches when Dan steps forward, into the room. White paint narrowly misses his eye, landing somewhere in his left eyebrow as he continues to approach Phil. 

“Stop that,” Dan laughs, his voice wheezy. Phil looks to his paint roller, looking like he’s suddenly just realized he’s still flinging it around. The two of them burst out into laughter. 

“We have so many more rooms left to go,” Dan manages to get out in a whine, clutching at his stomach as he laughs, no doubt leaving an off-white handprint there. 

“I think it’s time to break for lunch,” their producer cuts in from her hiding spot behind the biggest camera. She sounds exasperated. Dan would be too, he thinks, if it were anyone else. He’s wheezing too hard to give that realization any more thought. He’s having _too much fun_ to give it any more thought. 

Phil slowly bends down, placing his roller on the covered floor like it’s a weapon he’s just been caught with. It kind of is, Dan muses. That only makes him laugh more. 

When Phil stretches back up, he looks over with a meek expression. “Lunch sounds good.” 

Paint barely even gets washed off their hands before having lunch, both not seeing much of a point even if they’re planning on behaving while painting the rest of the house. Dan does lean over though, as they’re sat across from each other in the grass by the crafts services tent, with the corner of his napkin dipped in water. Phil almost falls backwards, not expecting the firm push against his chin, but Dan holds him steady. 

“You had a bit of paint,” Dan explains once he’s scrubbed away most of it. There’s also paint in Phil’s hair, paint on his ear, paint up his arms where he’s pushed up the sleeves of his shirt. Dan noted earlier that it had a little NASA logo on the breast— _nerd_ —but you’d be none the wiser now with the layer of paint thoroughly coating it. 

There’s no good reason for Dan to wipe the paint off Phil’s chin, what with the rest of him so thoroughly covered, and Dan doesn’t even try to justify it. He just sits back and continues eating his lunch, watching the way Phil’s pink cheeks flush deeper, biting hard at his bottom lip when Phil’s tongue darts out to swipe a crumb off his own. 

A spark of electricity joins the crisp autumn breeze. Dan briefly wonders if Phil feels it too. 

After lunch, the rest of the house—miraculously—gets painted. It’s mostly due to the crew taking over once Dan and Phil finish painting the lounge, the two of them getting a less than subtle nudge by production to work on painting the accented features. There’s a hope there that they will be less chaotic if they’re separated and given smaller bushes—Dan up at the new landing painting the built in bookshelves and Phil in the room down the hall, doing god knows what with his feature wall, armed with a color he didn’t let Dan see. Dan still doesn’t have a plan for his, he thinks something will come to him when the new custom cabinets are installed and painted. He mulls it over as he paints, humming to himself as if there isn’t a camera watching him work. 

Two hours must pass like that, Dan eventually left alone with his thoughts and a paintbrush. No one comes to bug him in the time it takes him to finish, and it’s oddly soothing. He reckons it’s the first time he’s had the opportunity to breathe here—even if those slow, calming breaths are taking in bits of the paint fumes that don’t flow freely through the open draft of the house. 

It’s a shame he’s about to go fuck it all up by wandering down the hall to find Phil. Maybe he’s a masochist. Maybe he likes the way Phil falters his breathing. 

Phil is standing on a ladder in the bedroom, taking far more care in painting the wall adjacent to the big, floor to ceiling windows than Dan did with the bookshelves—where it didn’t matter if the white paint got on the walls of the same shade. The majority of the wall is covered in a deep, midnight blue that Dan would probably have mistaken for black if it were not for all the light streaming in from the windows, and Phil is slowly swiping at where the wall meets the ceiling. 

It’s a bold choice. A good choice—one Dan wouldn’t have expected from Phil, given the garishly bright colors scribbled into all of his plans. The dark blue-black looks to be drying down to a velvety, satin finish. It’s honestly something Dan might have chosen himself. He doesn’t like the way that realization makes him feel. 

Dan leans against the doorframe. A few of the crew members in the room have noted Dan’s presence, but it hasn’t been made known to Phil yet. He savours a few more moments of shameless observation before stepping into the room, smiling to the floor as Phil chatters to himself—to the camera. 

Maybe Dan actually likes the way it makes him feel. 

Maybe he just… likes Phil. 

Dan does a little shake of his head. Not the type of thing he should be thinking about right now. He pushes the curls falling to his forehead away, then back again to where they were, before pushing off of the door frame and walking into the room. 

The plastic sheeting on the floor crinkles under Dan’s feet, and Phil turns on the ladder at the sound of his arrival. He wobbles enough that someone from the other side of the room jogs over to hold it steady, but Phil doesn’t seem to have a care in the world because he’s shaking even more with laughter at… at the very sight of Dan? 

“What?” Dan looks down. He _is_ covered in paint, but so is Phil. “Do I have something on my face?” 

Phil shakes his head, unsuccessfully stifling his laughter behind his paint splattered hand. He looks from Dan, then off to the left behind the big camera in the room, giggles absolutely bursting out of him. Dan is suddenly _very_ aware of the second camera in the room pointing directly at him. He feels the heat from his cheeks climb all the way up to the tips of his ears. 

“Does this show do laugh tracks?” Phil is asking the producer, to Dan’s horror. “Can we insert a laugh track?” He gestures towards Dan, bursting into laughter again when he looks at him. 

“ _What_ is so funny?!” Dan nearly stomps his foot as he crosses his arms over his chest. He feels something… sticky where his hand meets his arm. Phil is absolutely wheezing as Dan realizes where he went wrong. He holds his right arm out and his eyes trail all the way down his side, assessing the damage. 

The doorframe was indeed, recently painted. 

He mutters something about wet paint signs, Phil’s laughter drowning him out, as he huffs and wipes his arm against his dungarees to at least _try_ to make it look less ridiculous. 

There’s about eight different protests from around the room and a shriek from Phil, ducking out of the way as Dan grabs a long paint roller and stalks towards him. 

He’s too tired to start up another paint fight, so he’s really testing his luck, but he merely gives Phil a few soft whacks at the calf with the roller. 

“Do you want any help?” he asks, his voice even softer. He’s looking up at Phil for once, and in all of the three seconds it takes for Phil to respond, Dan decides he’s probably the only person in the world that still looks attractive from an under chin angle. 

Phil’s eyes light up, a blue so far from the shade on the wall beside him. 

“Grab a brush and start the bottom trim,” Phil instructs. “I’m almost done up here. I’ll join you in a minute.”

Dan salutes up to him, cringing into himself as he bends over to grab a paintbrush. He drags one of the inky blue-black trays over to the wall and plops down on his bum. It’s impossible to ignore Phil’s soft laughter. Dan doesn’t even try. 

Phil details his plans for the wall as they paint, showing Dan the small can of silver paint he plans to splatter over it once the dark blue dries. Dan wouldn’t have gone further than the flat color. He guesses that’s why they’re working together. 

And together, they swiftly cover the remaining border of white with the night’s sky. 

“For the record, laugh tracks are horrible.” Dan looks down at Phil, accidentally going over the same spot around the outlet wiring for the fifth time in a row now. “Like, why not just actually be funny instead of telling me when to laugh. It’s a total cop out.” 

Phil hums. He’s intently painting at the edge of the trim, now on his stomach with his nose dangerously close to the wall. There might already be a dark blue dot on the tip of it. Phil’s knees are bent, his feet swinging with no rhyme or reason in the air behind him. It’s an interesting way to paint, to say the least. 

“You’ve got a point,” Phil says. He drops his paintbrush and pushes himself up once he’s covered the last bit of white primer. Dan doesn’t focus on the flex of his arms, or the line of his shoulders, as he gets up. He doesn’t. 

“Is Phil ‘AmazingPhil’ Lester saying I’m right?” Dan asks, cheeky. He’s sure there’s a dimple caving into his cheek with the way he’s grinning. 

“Shhh.” Phil holds his finger to his lips, his eyes sparkling with the same mirth. 

The room smells of a mix of fresh air and fresh paint. It’s new, crisp in a way that Dan likes to take in with deep breaths. Maybe he can blame the way he’s looking at Phil on paint fumes. 

Dan leans over, dipping his thumb in the paint tray and moving to swipe it across Phil’s cheek in one swift movement. 

“Hey!” Phil’s face immediately scrunches, but his voice is incredibly soft for his words. “What was that for?” He pouts. Out of all the reactions Dan has gotten out of Phil, he thinks the soft pink-lipped pout is becoming his favorite. 

“A cheek for a cheek,” Dan says, casual, leaning back on his hands. He looks to Phil with eyes he’s sure are anything but casual. 

“Wha- _oh_.” Phil’s hand covers his mouth as he gets it and giggles. The other slaps at Dan’s shoulder a few times, leaving blue in its wake. Dan doesn’t mind. Not about the paint, at least. He definitely minds Phil blocking the view of his smile. He wants to pull his hand away. 

Fuck it. Dan pushes up off his hand to lean into Phil’s space and does exactly that. 

“You’re smudging my masterpiece,” Dan says softly, his fingers still wrapped around Phil’s wrist. It’s a pathetic excuse. Probably far less believable with the way he lingers, a paint covered thumb smearing more blue against the soft skin it’s stroking. 

Phil doesn’t pull away. Dan doesn’t think he’s breathing. The lack of oxygen must explain why the three seconds it takes for him to drop Phil’s hand feels like three hours. 

Later, while he’s scrubbing at his skin in the shower, Dan isn’t thinking about the bits of dried paint that he’ll probably never get out from his car seats. He isn’t thinking about the paint he’s going to have to pick out of his eyebrow later or the Phil handprint he noticed on his passenger window as he locked his car. He’s not even thinking about the article of clothing that doesn’t belong to him that’s balled up on his bathroom floor just outside the shower. 

All he thinks about is the way he can still feel that soft skin against his fingertips every time he closes his eyes to step under the water. 

It’s bad. He’s got it bad. 


	6. Chapter 6

An interesting sort of routine takes shape along with the house. There never was any discussion or acknowledgement of it really, but they both found themselves sticking around the job site after the cameras and crew had left. It quickly went from the odd one or two days, to almost every day of the week as the space transformed from a job site to something that felt more kin to a real home. 

Which, Dan snorts to himself, he guesses that means he’s doing something right. That is the whole point of all of this, isn’t it? 

Today is one of those days. Or, well, tonight is one of those nights. 

It’s a Friday, the end of the week, and the sun is set low in the sky. It casts a picturesque glow over the half finished back garden that Dan keeps flicking his eyes towards from his stationary spot leaning against the kitchen island. Phil is puttering about upstairs, doing _something_ Dan hasn’t been made aware of. But he’s learned that’s okay, he doesn’t need to have all eyes on, and all hands in, everything for this job. It’s a big step, one he refuses to think too much about or it’ll probably give him a complex. For now, all he thinks about is how nice the small movements and sounds of life are. He prefers to work alone, but it’s nice to not _be_ alone. 

Also, the new WiFi in this place is state of the art and kind of kicks ass. That’s nice too. 

Dan should be focusing on the task at hand, finding a suitable wallpaper for the feature wall in the dining area off the kitchen, but he can’t help but daydream at how perfect the garden is going to look once it’s finished and flourishing. He’s glad Phil talked him into the long row of sleek sliding glass doors that span almost the entire open kitchen and dining room. He was hesitant at first, sometimes going too modern when trying to preserve aspects of original exteriors just looks tacky, but he has to admit this is nothing short of perfect. From every angle, it’s as if it was meant to be. 

It’s easy to imagine foggy early mornings, padding down to the kitchen in nothing but pants and a sleepy haze. The smell of freshly brewed coffee fills his nose. The shiver from the chill of fresh air runs down his spine—a few of the doors slid open to wake him up, but they don’t make the house too frigid as he sits at the same countertop he’s leaning against now. 

Though now, it isn’t morning. Dan doesn’t have two steaming mugs of coffee set out in front of him, just his laptop. And, of course, he doesn’t own this house. 

He’s not sure why he imagines two cups of coffee either. 

Dan sighs, looking back to his computer screen and refocusing his eyes on the fifteenth page of this wallpaper website he’s scrolled through probably about a hundred times now. The primed wall is facing his back, taunting him as if it knows he is struggling to find something that really _fits_ the space. 

There’s a loud thump from the floor above. Dan tilts his head up towards the ceiling briefly, pausing his tapping to lift a brow. When no shout for help follows, Dan looks back to his laptop.

Then, like clockwork, “Dan,” Phil calls. “Are you still here?” 

Dan rolls his eyes, pushing up off the elbow he’s had resting on the counter—they really need to agree on stools for the breakfast bar, he can acknowledge standing desks are good but this really isn’t his style. 

“Yeah,” Dan calls back, matching Phil’s volume. He kicks it down a few notches as his shoes tap against hardwood, approaching the stairway. “I would’ve said something before leaving.”

“Also I’m literally your ride home,” Dan adds, in more of a mutter under his breath than anything else. 

Phil says something lower in response, something Dan can’t quite make out from the bottom of the stairs. Then, louder, “Can you come check this out?” 

“Yep,” Dan says, mostly unneeded as he’s sure Phil could already hear his feet, heavy with more than a full day’s work, clunking on the stairs. 

“Where are you?” Dan asks, though he takes a left at the top of the stairs. Maybe he has some weird bat echolocation type of Phil honing skills, maybe he just knows that loud thump came from above the kitchen. 

“In here!” 

“Very specific,” Dan mutters under his breath, a small grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. It’s not voluntary, he thinks. He doesn’t know if that makes it any better. 

His feet carry him down the hall, and the grin becomes something more of a fond smile when he locates Phil in the primary bedroom. He’s not at all in any position Dan would expect to find him, and he thinks that’s pretty much quintessentially Phil. 

Phil is sprawled out on his back, fully starfished on a large plush throw rug in a few different swirling shades of grey and black. 

Dan lets out a curious little huff of a, “ _huh,”_ as he regards him, leaning his shoulder against the doorframe. He hadn’t picked this one out, nor had Phil shown it to him—as far as he can remember—and he… doesn’t hate it. He would be lying if he said he wouldn’t buy the rug for himself if he saw it. It’s a good buy. Dan bites his tongue at the voice that zooms through his brain, the reminder that their different styles often intersect, and even sometimes, somehow, they work surprisingly well together. 

Phil moves his arms and legs back and forth, as if it’s December and he’s making snow angels on fresh snow instead of September in an empty room with a slight echo and lingering smells of fresh paint. He tilts his head back in the plush carpet, chin lifted towards the ceiling to look at Dan in the doorway. Even without being that right way up, the joy on his face is clear. 

“Having fun?” Dan asks, his fond smile schooling into a smirk now that Phil is looking at him. 

“Mhm,” Phil hums. Then he pauses his rug angels to pat at the floor. “Do you like it?” 

Dan steps into the room, shoes against hardwood echoing only slightly with the rug now absorbing most of the sound. He stops at the edge of the rug and looks down. He bends over and touches the material with the tips of his fingers, brushing right past the side of Phil’s head, avoiding the messy dark brown hair that hasn’t been camera ready for hours now. 

“S’nice,” Dan says, stretching back up. He feels the movement in a dull ache at his back, he really should be calling it a day and getting off his feet. 

“I saw it online on a clear-out the other night and it was either the two a.m. speaking or the great deal that told me to get it before sending it to you.” 

Dan huffs out a small laugh. He knows that experience all too well, so he can’t be mad. 

“Well, it’s Dan approved,” Dan says, giving the rug a nod with another once over. The once over being _only_ about the rug and not the sliver of skin peeking out between Phil’s jeans and his rucked up tee shirt. 

“How do you know?” Phil sits up in a flash. “You haven’t tested it out?” 

Dan quirks a brow. “Tested it out? It’s not a sports car, Phil.” He watches with narrowing eyes as Phil shuffles around, scooching over and facing Dan with his legs crossed and his head cocked to the side. It’s not at all adorable. Not at all. 

“Wait, did you want me to say no to it?” Dan asks, clearly confused. 

Phil shakes his head. “No, but you need to have the full experience before approving it.” 

It’s when Phil pats at the plush rug beside him that Dan understands. He rolls his eyes, he really should be used to this by now. He goes to step forward and- 

“No!” Phil shouts, wildly waving his hands in front of him to stop Dan. “No shoes on the new rug!” 

Dan snorts. “Of course,” he mutters, looking down at his shoes with a soft smile while he toes them off. 

With his shoes neatly lined up at the edge of the rug, black socks meet plush grey carpet. Dan plops himself down beside Phil, crossing his legs in a similar fashion. He rolls his shoulders before squishing his hands into the rug. Sitting down after a day spent mostly on his feet feels like heaven. It helps that the material under his bum also feels like a cloud. 

“Yes, it’s nice.” Dan turns his head to look at Phil. “I approve.” 

“No.” Phil shakes his head. “You need the _full_ experience.” 

Dan quirks a brow. Why is this guy always up to something?

Before Dan can ask for an explanation, his hand is being grabbed and tugged away from the rug. He doesn’t have any time to react, his mind too clouded by Phil’s soft hand gripping around his as he’s pulled backwards. They fall on their backs beside each other with a quiet ‘ _oof’_ from Dan and a breathy giggle from Phil. 

Dan’s hand is dropped as quickly as it was taken, and he refuses to analyze why his fingers stretch out towards Phil in response. He just has soft hands and soft hands are nice to hold, Dan rationalizes. Instead of getting closer to Phil with his outstretched fingers, Dan realizes the man beside him is shifting over away from him. 

Phil continues his rug angels at a distance, where only the tips of his fingers lightly brush against Dan’s shoulder every couple of seconds. It’s a big rug. Dan briefly wonders how much it cost and what the deal was that prompted Phil to impulse buy it. He doesn’t ask though. It’s really not that important—he’ll look at the spreadsheets later. That is, if Phil bothered to update them. They’ve both been pretty bad at that, Dan will admit, but it’s easy to forget when you’re not spending your own money on a renovation. 

“Come on Dan.” Phil’s hand shoves at Dan’s shoulder on an upward lift of his invisible wings. 

Dan shakes his head, that small fond smile returning before he copies Phil’s movements—the two of them making the strangest rug angels as their long limbs all bump together in an uncoordinated mess. They could probably make far better angels if Dan scooted over away from Phil more, there’s plenty of rug left on his other side, but for some reason he doesn’t budge one bit. 

The room is full of loud cackles that die off into wheezy laughter and the sound of skin brushing against what Dan is pretty sure is wool, but it could very well be an incredibly convincing nylon dupe. He’d like to think his random sustainability lectures haven’t gone in one of Phil’s ears and out the other. He hopes the carpet choice is proof of that. 

“I think I’m getting rug burn,” Dan says after a while, slowing his movements. 

“That’s part of the fun!” Phil giggles. 

“There’s nothing fun about rug burn.” Dan turns his head to roll his eyes at Phil. He’s stopped his angels as well, his arm no longer bumping into Dan’s. It rests across his stomach instead. His chest rises and falls rapidly as his laughter slowly starts to die down. 

Dan bets his entire face is as pink as the apples of Phil’s cheeks. He can feel the heat under his skin, though he doesn’t seem to care. It’s hard to care about much of anything while looking at Phil like this. 

He really shouldn’t be looking at Phil in this way—the way that makes his chest flutter and ache. 

Dan looks away, focusing his eyes back up to the vaulted ceiling. It’s a crisp, fresh white, void of any holes or structural damage. That starts to make him feel _something_ as well, so he flicks his eyes down to their feet, desperate to stop the heat of his cheeks. 

Dan’s plain black socks stretch out before him, next to Phil’s mismatched ones. A tan one on the left foot with a moose print and an offensively bright red one on the right with little slices of cheese pizza all over. 

_How can feet be so endearing?_ Dan wonders to himself, watching Phil stretch and wiggle his toes. He swears he doesn’t have a foot thing, but for some reason he feels compelled to just stare. He’s starting to think that even if he closed his eyes completely, he wouldn’t be able to stop the feeling in his chest. 

There’s a bit of a gurgle in his stomach. Maybe the cartoon pizzas on Phil’s socks are making him hungry. That’s all. 

“It’s a comfortable rug,” Dan says after a long beat of silence, because he really doesn’t want to vocalize anything else that’s running through his head. “I feel like I could fall asleep on it,” he adds in a low hum, absentmindedly brushing his knuckles against the soft material. 

“I have the most ridiculous idea.” Phil sits straight up, looking down at Dan with his eyes all wide and round in that way Dan has learned to be wary of. 

“Aren’t all your ideas ridiculous ideas?” Dan quips. 

“Shut up,” Phil says with a giggle, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Dan’s look much of the same as he laughs. The air is light around them, a comfortable playful joking that Dan couldn’t have ever imagined them having before they started working together, but somehow it feels as easy as breathing. 

That would be if breathing _was_ easy. He’s found it quite hard to breathe around Phil, and not entirely because of their incredibly contagious and uncontainable bouts of laughter. But he doesn’t like to put too much weight on that. They’re co-hosts, business partners if you will. The blossoming thoughts and feelings Dan has are the opposite of professional. 

Though maybe any hopes of professionalism were torn down with the walls on demo day. 

“Alright, tell me this great idea.” 

“Oh, so you think my ideas are great now?” 

Dan hums, looking up at Phil with a squint. “Slip of the tongue.” 

Phil sticks his tongue out. It’s not adorable. It’s doubly not adorable when he scrunches his nose along with it. Not at all. Not one bit. 

“Weee,” Phil starts, “should order dinner and have a sleepover.” 

Dan lifts a brow. “Here?” 

Phil nods his head. 

“We literally have nothing here.” 

“It’ll be like camping.” 

“This is not at all like camping,” Dan gestures to the empty room around them. 

Phil pouts, his eyes going sad as he looks down at Dan with that pitifully pink, _soft looking_ , bottom lip jutting out. “It’ll be fun,” he says. “And do you really want to drive all the way back to the city now? What time is it?” 

“Uh-”

“Actually don’t answer that,” Phil interrupts, talking at lightning speed. “My stomach is telling me it’s past dinner time, which means this is the best idea I’ve ever had and you can’t contest that.” 

“Hm,” Dan hums. “Is that so?” 

Phil nods again, a wide grin spreading across his face. It’s as cute as the pout. Possibly cuter if Dan is keeping track of those kinds of things. Which he isn’t, for the record. 

If Dan were trying to keep his pride, trying to act like he spent extra hours on the job site to get work done and not because he enjoys the company of a man he used to be so adamant about disliking, he would claim that he ponders the idea at great length before reluctantly agreeing. But it doesn’t happen like that at all. There’s no way he’s saying no to Phil. 

Dan sighs, in a desperate attempt to keep up whatever façade he thinks he’s fronting. 

“I guess I have a few emergency blankets and stuff in the boot of my car.” 

Phil’s smile grows even wider, his teeth joining the exchange as he claps his hands together once, giving Dan a start. 

“Sleepover!” 

Dan huffs out a laugh. “It’ll be good research into what places deliver around here,” he rationalizes. To Phil? To himself? Who knows. 

Dan pushes himself up off the floor, bending down to grab Phil’s hands and pull him up as well. It feels overwhelmingly natural, Dan grabbing his shoes and following Phil back down the stairs as if it were part of their routine. 

They walk through to the kitchen, Dan opening and unlocking his laptop for Phil to peruse delivery options while he digs through the less than organized boot of his car. He leaves Phil unsupervised with one last gentle threat. 

“I’m trusting you.” Dan warns. “You are responsible for anything scarring you find if you go digging.” 

“Who do you take me for?” Phil calls after him. Dan is already halfway to the front door. 

“A nosy gossip!” 

“Well… you’re not wrong!” 

Fond. Dan is so incredibly fond. The feeling doesn’t shake with the grounding click of the door behind him, nor with the chill September air hitting his face. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be shaken. That’s a risky thought to have, though Dan reckons his whole career has been in the business of high risks, high rewards. 

Now how to translate that confidence in risk taking to his personal life? _Fuck if he knows._

When Dan steps back through the door and into the kitchen, he finds Phil in the same spot he left him—bending over at the counter, posture looking similar to a human sized candy cane with his nose in Dan’s laptop. Dan snorts as he drops his gym bag—that was miraculously still in his car with presumably clean clothes—with his car blanket folded atop it on the least construction-dusty spot on the floor. He can’t hold too much judgement as he smirks at Phil though. He’s well aware his posture is no better, but it’s still a funny image to walk into. 

Maybe it’s the long day, or the paint fumes, but there’s little regard for personal space when Dan leans into Phil to look over his shoulder. No incriminating tabs or search histories seem to be open, just the few tabs—okay ten tabs—Dan had open previously, along with the Domino’s website, and a google search tab that says: _does dominos do vegan?_

That makes Dan’s heart do something funny, and he’s glad Phil is more focused on the Domino's menu than his face, because he’s sure it’s absolutely giving everything away. 

Dan leans into Phil a bit more to tap at that tab on the screen. “I can make it work.” 

Phil hums in response. 

“Are we really in delivery distance?” Dan asks. This place seems to never stop getting better and better. Maybe being in delivery distance to a chain pizza place isn’t driving up the actual market value, but it is absolutely a check on Dan’s personal list of pros. Not like he’s keeping those sorts of tabs or anything. 

“Yeah,” Phil says with a nod, turning his head to look at Dan. They’re quite close. Neither of them step away. “There’s a few other places, if you want to look,” he starts, clicking over to a new tab, “I tend to stick to what’s familiar.”

“Domino’s is great.” Dan puts his own fingers on the track pad to stop Phil. “As long as you don’t dip shame.” 

“Dip shame?” Phil asks. Dan simply shushes him with a shake of his head, clicking back to the menu to start an order. 

There’s a brief bicker over what the superior side is, a cocked eyebrow at the ten extra dips Dan adds to the order, a heaping dose of judgement as Phil babbles about how gross cheese is while he watches Dan build his own cheeseless pizza—right after Phil had made his own definitely very cheesy creation, and a pout from Phil as Dan refuses to let him put his card info in to pay. Dan reminds Phil he does still technically have an outstanding bet balance to pay off. Phil argues that he was never planning on taking Dan’s money in the first place, even though he knew he was right. Dan simply scoffs at him for not making the stakes higher as he clicks order with a wink. 

The great cheese debate continues strongly through the entire hour it takes for their food to arrive, and Dan is surprised at just how much they both seem to like to create silly, menial debates. There isn’t any real bite behind any of their words, it’s more like they’re bickering and teasing each other for the fun of it rather than “winning” or proving a point. They’re actually… arguing the same point, it seems? But they’re doing it with such passion that neither of them seem to care to point it out. 

It’s a far cry from how he initially imagined working with Phil, and he… kind of loves it. 

But he won’t say that aloud. 

And well, from their easy laughter and gentle bumping of shoulders every so often as they eat—even though there’s more than enough room on the empty dining room floor they’ve spread their feast out on for them to not have to be sitting shoulder to shoulder—he doesn’t really need to say it for it to be known. 

Dan’s current favorite playlist plays softly from his laptop on the floor in the mix of pizza boxes and sodas that are being consumed directly from the bottle, and every few minutes Phil interrupts whatever conversation they’re having about the house to ask what the song is. Dan doesn’t point out the fact that he could lean forward to look at the track himself. 

“I still don’t know what the fuck to do with this wall,” Dan says, screwing the cap back on his soda and leaning back on his hands once he’s set the bottle down. Phil looks up at the primed white wall in front of them, mid-bite. He wipes his left hand on his jeans before pushing his glasses further up his nose to squint at it, as if a less blurry view would make it anything other than a blank white wall. 

“I saw all your wallpaper tabs,” Phil hums. “Can’t decide on one?” 

Dan snorts. “More like, can’t find one I like at all.” 

“Oof,” Phil says.

“Oof, indeed.” 

Dan flicks his eyes from the wall to Phil, biting back the smile that threatens to pull across his face at Phil’s scrunched up, pursed lipped expression. The one that tells Dan Phil may be forming a thought—dangerous territory. 

“Okay!” Phil suddenly turns towards Dan, shifting his whole body in his direction. “I know this is your thing, but I have an idea if you’ll entertain it.” 

“Go on,” Dan hums. “I value your input.” 

Phil’s eyes go wide, Dan has to stop himself from snorting. 

“You do?” Phil asks, his voice going a bit crackled with the question, clearly surprised. 

Dan shakes his head, but the smile spreading across his face gives him away completely. “Don’t go getting smug about it,” he says with a wave of his hand. 

Phil bumps his shoulder against Dan’s, the look on his face saying everything Dan needs to know about how much he’s going to disregard the request. That’s quite alright though, somehow even smug looks cute on Phil.

“We still have all the sample paints from the cabinets.” Phil lifts a brow. Dan flicks his eyes over to the far corner of the room, a dozen or so small paint cans stacked up under a step ladder. He’s not sure what Phil’s getting at. 

“And…?” Dan vocalizes his confusion. 

Phil nods to the wall. “Why don’t we paint it?” 

“Paint it?” Dan asks. “Didn’t we want something more than just a basic flat color?” 

“No,” Phil says as he pushes himself up off the floor, stepping up to the wall in question. “Like a mural.” Phil mimes the swooshing motion of a paintbrush with his hand against the wall. It looks suspiciously like- 

“Did you just make a penis?” Dan asks, an incredulous laugh ripping from his chest. 

Phil looks over his shoulder, eyes narrowed but his tongue pokes through his toothy smile. 

“Nope.” 

“You _so_ did!” Dan raises his voice over Phil’s increasing giggles. He shakes his head, rolling his eyes. “We can’t paint a mural.” 

Phil’s laughter stops abruptly. His bottom lip juts out in yet another pout. 

_God,_ this man is like a fucking puppy. 

“Why not?” Phil’s head cocks to the side with the question, not at all helping his case. 

“Well…” Dan trails off, trying to catch a thought in his brain that won’t end in him accidentally calling Phil adorable aloud. Turns out that’s getting increasingly difficult lately. 

“We’re not artists?” Dan’s statement comes out as more of a question as it leaves his mouth. 

Phil crosses his arms. “Speak for yourself,” he says with a huff. 

When Dan gives him nothing more than a blank, unconvinced look, Phil sighs, pulling his phone out of his pocket and plopping back down on the ground next to Dan. They’re somehow even closer than before, Phil’s entire side pressed up against Dan’s as he unlocks his phone and starts to flick his finger rapidly up his camera roll. 

_Brave,_ Dan thinks, watching the blur of images go by. 

“I’ve done it before,” Phil explains as he stops scrolling. He clicks on a picture so it expands and holds his phone out to Dan. It’s of a bedroom wall, clear by the bed frame and headboard pushed against it, artful swishes of vibrant hues painted all over it. Phil leans further into his side, flicking his finger left a few times to swipe through more angles of the same room. 

Dan hates to admit that it looks _fucking good._

“ _You_ did this?” Dan asks. 

“Mhm,” Phil hums. “It seems intimidating, but if you keep it light and fun the abstract effect looks really good. I think it would work well with some of the shades we have,” Phil turns his head to nod towards the kitchen behind them. “They all fit the color palette.” 

“Usually when I call something I’ve done abstract, it’s because it actually looks like shit.” 

Phil snorts a laugh. “If it turns out trash we can always paint over?” he suggests. Dan hates that he’s considering it. “It’s not like we’d be out a day or anything,” Phil adds, bumping his shoulder against Dan’s, “considering you still haven’t picked out a wallpaper.” 

“Ugh,” Dan sighs dramatically, holding Phil’s phone out to him as he falls back on his back. “I can’t believe I’m considering this.” 

“Come on,” Phil says. “You’ll love it.” 

Dan can hear the excited smile on his face, he turns his head to see it for himself. It’s better than the picture in his mind. 

“It’ll be fun!” Phil raises his brows, waggling them up and down a few times until Dan can’t keep his loud snort to himself. 

“Fine!” Dan sits up, raising his hands in defeat. “I’m not helping you paint over it when it looks like a toddler got a hold of a box of crayons though,” he adds, though he thinks they both know the threat is baseless. 

There’s a game of rock, paper, scissors, and Dan pokes around the house for one of the plastic tarps they used for painting while Phil takes their pizza boxes out to the bin. They each wrestle one end of the plastic to spread it out so it adequately protects the floor, and Dan switches his playlist to something that’s apparently more royalty free according to Phil—whatever that means. 

Phil gets to work setting up his handheld camera, dragging in another small ladder to use as a sort of makeshift tripod for it, while Dan gets to work popping off all of the lids of the sample paints. There are a few vibrant shades, deep teals and forest greens, but most are those more ambiguous shades like the one they went with for the kitchen cabinets: greys with various hints of muted blues and greens. More than half of them are colors Dan and Phil completely disagree on the names of—shades Dan insists are blue that Phil is adamant about being green and vice versa—but regardless of what colors they actually _are_ , they both agree that they’re all _nice colors._

Looking at them all set out again, Dan is glad they went with the shade they did for the cabinetry. He also can’t help but notice that most of them are incredibly similar colors to all the wallpapers he was gravitating towards. Dan shakes his head as he smiles down at the paint, _fucking Phil Lester._ He’s a bit of a genius. 

“Hey guys!” Phil’s voice is as bright as his smile as he waves at the camera. It’s set out in front of them, Phil precariously perched atop the stepladder with Dan awkwardly leaning against it by his side. He hasn’t quite mastered the art of looking cool on camera, he’s not sure he ever will. It’s still intimidating being next to Phil, for a whole slew of reasons, but mostly for the charismatic persona he easily falls into once a camera is rolling. 

“Or uh-” Phil gives a sheepish smile to the camera “- hi producers who will probably want this footage once you find out what we’re up to!” 

“Phil has decided to burn down the house,” Dan deadpans to the camera. 

“Shh! No I have not!” 

Dan nods to the camera, mouthing ‘ _Yes he has.’_

“Shut up!” 

“I didn’t say anything!” 

“So as I was saying...” Phil rolls his eyes at Dan before looking back to the camera. “Dan and I are staying over tonight to adequately check for ghosts.” 

“That is not at all what we’re-”

“We’re actually ghostbusters. Real estate in the front, ghostbusters in the back.” 

“Phil I don’t think that’s how you use that-” 

“I’m feeling a presence-” 

“Oh my god, Phil!” Dan swats at Phil’s arm. “Ghosts aren’t even real.” He looks to the camera with a roll of his eyes. Phil gasps dramatically, leaning towards Dan and whispering—somehow loud enough for the camera to hear—something about how they’ll be _discussing this later._

Dan’s cheeks are hot when Phil pulls away, turning back to the camera to babble something else that goes in one of Dan’s ears and out the other. It’s Phil’s fault really. He’s quite the distraction. 

“So Dan,” Phil says. He’s addressing Dan now, his body completely turned towards him with a soft smile and a lifted brow. “If we’re not checking for spooks, what _are_ we doing?” 

Dan’s mouth tugs up into a mischievous smile, looking straight at the camera. “So I had this idea-” 

Phil gasps. “No you didn’t!” There’s a shove at Dan’s shoulder. Their laughter echoes throughout the empty house. 

“So _Phil_ had this idea…”

“No funny business,” Dan threatens, holding his dry paintbrush out towards Phil’s chest. Phil holds his hands up in response, his own brush clattering to the floor. “This top was like four hundred pounds and I don’t think it would look better with splotches of green on it.” 

Phil’s eyes go wide. “Four-” 

“Truce,” Dan interrupts him, holding a hand out with a pointed look. Phil rolls his eyes, but he takes it, giving Dan’s hand a gentle, loose shake before dropping it to retrieve his paint brush.

“Four hundred pounds,” Phil repeats. “Is that why you wear it every day?” 

“Oh shut the fuck up.” Dan laughs, actually smacking Phil in the arm with his brush this time. 

Hours later, once they’ve found themselves lying back on the plastic covered floor looking up at their work, the paint is _mostly_ on the wall. Dan’s clothes are unscathed, but he can’t say the same for his cheeks, Phil’s hair, and both of their hands. 

The wall doesn’t look as much of a mess as the two of them. Actually, it doesn’t look like a mess at all. The swipes of paint look earthy and alive, as if the garden is creeping its way through the large adjacent windows, but it’s somehow also cool and calm, the more blue shades mixed in looking like the crashing waves of the ocean. And it somehow really fits in the space. Quite perfectly if Dan’s being honest.

“It’s not half-” 

“It’s really fucking good, Phil,” Dan cuts him off, turning his head to the side to flash Phil a proud smile. 

“No painting over it?” Phil asks, the corners of his mouth twitching. Dan aches to scoot that little bit closer, it would take barely anything for their noses to touch. He doesn’t though, obviously. 

“No painting over it.” Dan lifts his hand for a high five. Phil misses. Dan snorts. Phil tries again. When their palms connect Phil tucks his thumb around Dan’s hand, giving it a quick squeeze. 

There’s more than just pride swirling in Dan’s chest. 

Exhaustion doesn’t even feel like a word anymore as Dan double checks the locks and trudges his lead feet up the stairs. In a bit of a déjà vu, there’s an amused huff and soft smile from Dan when he finds Phil in a similar position to just a handful of hours prior. Only now Phil is less starfished out on the rug. With the sun’s absence, the only light in the room is now from the dim glow of Dan’s laptop beside Phil and what’s streaming in from the hall. Half of Dan’s blanket is thrown over Phil’s chest, tucked up under his chin, and his jeans have been swapped out for Dan’s gym shorts. 

He looks as cozy as anyone could be lying on a rug in a completely empty room. 

“Are you going to turn off the light?” Phil asks, looking up when Dan steps into the room. 

“Absolutely not,” Dan says. He doesn’t get Phil’s reaction, because he’s bending over to dig through his bag, but by the muffled snort he hears, he’s not at all surprised. 

“Dan,” Phil says, his smile hidden behind his hand when Dan pops back up with his oversized gym tee. 

Dan narrows his eyes. “ _Don’t_.”

“Are you afraid of the dark?” Phil asks, completely ignoring him. 

“No,” Dan replies quietly, turning more-so to hide the embarrassment on his face than to protect his modestly while he tugs off his jumper and pulls on the soft tee. 

“ _Dan_ ,” Phil prods. 

Dan says nothing, and without a second thought he’s shucking his jeans off as well. He does a bit of a hop to get one of his ankles free, but comes out of it mostly unscathed—he’s just glad he went with a decent pair of black Calvins this morning. 

Dan turns on his heel and squishes the soft material of the rug between his toes, not yet looking down at Phil with the embarrassed flush making its way up his neck. 

“Hey,” Phil says quietly, followed by a hand squeezing around Dan’s ankle.

It would probably make Dan jump, if it were not for how soft and gentle Phil’s touch is. Dan finally dares to look down. Phil is looking up at him, now propped up on an elbow, his free hand rubbing a feather light thumb against Dan’s warm skin. 

“I’m sorry,” Phil’s voice stays soft. “I don’t think it’s funny that you’re scared of the dark.”

“I’m not afraid of the dark,” Dan protests, though he sounds unconvincing, even to himself. 

“It’s okay if you are.” 

“It’s just- who even _likes_ the dark anyway?” Dan starts off on a tangent as he sits down next to Phil, the hand on his ankle retreating. “Serial killers? That’s not my vibe…”

Phil uh-huh’s and mhm’s while Dan goes on, somehow landing them on a completely different conversation in a matter of fifteen seconds. Though Dan’s steering away from the topic is not at all smooth or stealthy, Phil doesn’t call him out for it. He just smiles and nods and laughs along, until he’s bumping his shoulder against Dan’s to shut him up. 

“Have you ever watched Buffy?”

“What?” Dan asks, his brain being pulled back down to earth. 

“The Vampire Slayer?” Phil grabs Dan’s laptop off the floor beside him, and only then does Dan remember he had tasked Phil with finding something to watch while he locked up. 

“Oh, yeah.” Dan nods, then promptly shakes his head. “I mean I know of the show, but I don’t think I ever got past the first season TBH.” 

Phil gasps. “You need to be educated!” 

Dan doesn’t protest, and the two of them shuffle around, trying to get comfortable for _the best show of all time_ —Phil’s words, not Dan’s. They find a comfortable enough position, lying side by side with their knees bent up, knocking together every so often as they shuffle around, but a bit of a predicament arises when Dan tries to pull his laptop closer to rest half on each of their stomachs between them. It’s properly dead since Dan has been using it all night—only reading at five percent since Phil plugged it in when he came up—and the charger cord struggling to stay plugged into the wall stops him short. 

“Ugh,” Dan groans, “budge over.” 

“We should fix that,” Phil says, his head turned towards the outlet on the far wall, ignoring Dan’s nudging against his shoulder. 

“We cannot move and rewire the outlets in this room because they’re not suitable for rug cuddles, Phil.” 

Phil’s head whips back over, looking at Dan with a smirk. “Is that what we’re doing now?” His eyes glint in the light of Dan’s laptop. Dan kind of wants to smack him. He also kind of wants to kiss him. 

He, of course, does neither. 

“That’s beside the point.” Dan shakes his head. He nudges at Phil’s shoulder again. “Now budge over so it reaches.” 

“Hey Dan,” Phil says in a lull of their quiet conversations—mostly consisting of Phil clueing Dan in as he started them on the second season, their mutual admiration of the physique of a few characters, and both of them fading in and out of sleep. 

“Yeah?”

“You were right.”

“My ego loves to hear that,” Dan laughs, “but you wanna be more specific?” 

Phil shifts. Dan’s laptop slides off his stomach as he turns on his side. Neither of them make a move to stop it, so it settles in the crack of space between them. 

“The hardwood is good,” Phil says, tucking his hands under his head. “This rug is nice.” 

“Phil Lester,” Dan says incredulously, a wide grin spreading across his face. “Actually admitting that wall to wall carpet is bad.” 

“Hey!” Phil says in a weak whisper shout. “I never said that!” 

Dan lifts his brows. “But that _is_ what you mean.” 

Phil rolls his eyes. 

After a beat, Dan clears his throat. “I’m not surprised you like a good hard wood.” 

Phil makes a strangled, choking sound in response. Dan’s badly stifled, wheezy laughter isn’t alone for long though. 

“Hey,” Phil speaks up once they’ve both caught their breath. 

Dan hums. “Yeah?”

“Shut the fuck up.” 

It’s Dan’s turn to choke on his own surprise. He’s rarely heard Phil swear, as he seems to keep his channel and the network’s PG rating whenever cameras are rolling—and cameras are often rolling around the two of them. But with how natural it sounds out of his mouth, Dan can tell he’s getting more _real_ Phil than the AmazingPhil persona. He likes that. 

“I like you,” Dan settles on. Because it’s true, and he doesn’t have much else to say, but he would never give Phil exactly what he wants by actually shutting up. 

“You’re not all that bad yourself.” 

With their show forgotten, Dan looks to the wall of windows in front of them. It’s too dark to really see much of anything, especially with the hall light still on behind them. A nightlight, Phil had teased. Though beyond the reflection of the two dorky idiots laying on the floor, the moonlight does cast a faint glow over the property. He can’t deny that it will be a beautiful view when the landscaping is done. It’s beautiful now. Breathtaking even at this time of night, far enough away from the city that light pollution doesn’t stop the stars from shining. 

His eyes flick away from the windows, to the other night sky in the room. Between the two, low outlets they installed, Dan can imagine a big, plush bed centered against the wall, matching nightstands on either side. It’s not hard to picture, most of the staging furniture is ordered. 

So why is he focusing more on the feeling of the dip in the bed beside him as a warm body joins him? Why does he keep placing himself in this house, instead of a prospective buyer? 

Why is he never alone? 

“I’m glad I listened to you about the wall of glass,” Dan says, because apparently Phil has opened up the room for confessions. 

“You are?”

“Mhm,” Dan hums. “I thought it would be overboard carrying it up to here, but I couldn’t imagine this room without it.” 

“Beautiful,” Phil says. 

“It really is,” Dan replies. Phil hums from beside him and Dan shifts back onto his side to look at him, only a little surprised that he’s already looking back. 

Phil’s hair looks especially dark in the dim light of the room, but his eyes somehow remain bright. He ditched his glasses a bit ago, after Dan had poked fun at how he kept letting them go crooked. It was really more of an excuse for Dan to reach over and fix them for him, but he guesses he isn’t too mad at the loss—Phil _is_ incredibly cute as he squints to read Dan’s face. The accentuated shadows of the room make his high cheekbones look capable of cutting glass, though Dan has a theory that if he reached a hand up his skin would be silky smooth and soft. He’s so beautiful that Dan, quite literally, forgets to take a breath. 

“I love this room,” Dan says, instead of any of the other words of affection floating through his head that are definitely not entirely geared towards the room. “It’s kind of like, my dream layout.” 

Phil smiles, giving the room a once over before looking back to Dan. “Me too.” 

“The network really didn’t get what they bargained for with the whole opposites thing, huh?” Dan snorts, gesturing between the two of them. 

He earns a similar noise from Phil in response. 

“Yeah.” 

“Do you think we’re out of our minds?” Dan asks the ceiling, not sure if Phil is still awake.

“What?” Phil replies immediately, his voice low and sleepy. “For having a sleepover in an empty house on a rug? No,” Phil shakes his head, “absolutely not. I’ve never had a bad idea.” 

“Love your confidence.” Dan snorts. “And I’ll remind you you said that tomorrow morning when both our backs are broken, but that’s not what I meant.” 

“Oh?” 

Dan bites at his lip. “I meant like, in general,” he explains softly. “Doing all of this together.” 

Phil makes a low sound in his throat. “Perhaps.” 

Dan hums a soft, “ _Huh_.” 

“Is that necessarily a bad thing though?” Phil asks. 

“Not sure,” Dan says, staring up at the ceiling as if it has the answers he’s looking for. He’s not even sure what the questions to those answers are at this point.

“Ask me again when this is all over,” is what Dan settles on, when there’s deep steady breathing coming from beside him, and a warm hand sleepily gripping at his shoulder. In such a large empty house, in an area that’s nowhere near as populated as Dan is used to, it should feel far more unsettling than it does. But he finds it easy to let his guard down, his lids growing heavier and heavier as he drifts off to sleep. 


	7. Chapter 7

The morning sun is beaming directly into Dan’s face, as if his eyelids are unsuspecting ants and the floor to ceiling windows are a mildly evil kid with a magnifying glass. Dan groans, low and sleepy in his throat, and he feels his back crack in about five different places as he shifts from on his back to his side to prevent the spark of flames on fragile skin. His nose bumps against something, something soft to the touch but firm, and with a broken, surprised grumble Dan cracks an eye open. 

He’s aware of where he is, he doesn’t think his aching limbs would let him forget, so he’s not sure why he’s so shocked when he’s met with a sparkling blue. Phil’s eyes are like those tricky shades of paint, the ones where you have to paint a test strip and check back on it at every hour of the day to truly see what color it is. They reflect little flecks of green and yellow in the early morning sun, and Dan briefly wonders if it’s the sun or just the close proximity that allows him to pick the colors out. 

“Morning.” Phil’s voice is deep and rough with sleep. Dan has to close his eyes and flash every unsexy thing he can think of in rapid succession behind them to prevent him from groaning in response. It barely works. 

“How long have you been up?” Dan asks as he opens his eyes again. There’s a smirk on Phil’s lips now. Dan hates that he loves it. 

“Few minutes,” Phil says. “Sun,” he adds in a little grunt, his eyes squinting to accentuate his point. 

A deep chuckle rumbles through Dan’s chest. “The splurge on those custom blackout curtains doesn’t look so bad now, huh bud?” he teases. 

Phil rolls his eyes, but he follows it with a small, cute nod. 

Everything about Phil in this moment is cute. He looks so soft and cozy in this early sleepy state, and Dan wants to wrap himself up in all of it. 

Phil’s moving forward, or maybe Dan’s moving forward, Dan doesn’t really know. He doesn’t even register it happening until their noses bump again. Phil’s eyes are fluttering shut and Dan feels a ghost of a hand at the exposed skin of his waist from where his shirt has rucked up in his sleep. He wants this, he’s hit with the stark realization at just how much he wants this as Phil tilts his chin and he instinctually follows. There’s nothing that he wants _more_ than to kiss Phil right now, but- 

“Please don’t kiss me,” Dan says in a low, broken whine, his bottom lip brushing the slightest bit against Phil’s as he speaks. It sends a shock of electricity down his spine. 

“Oh!” Phil jolts back, his hand retreating as he immediately puts a painful amount of distance between them. In reality, it's only about twice as far as they woke up in, but being any amount of distance from Phil feels painful right now. 

“I’m sorry,” Phil says quickly. 

When Dan dares to look him in the eye, they look nothing but apologetic. It would be smart of him to brush it off like this, pretend that Phil’s misunderstanding is actually what he was going for, but Dan thinks there’s something about Phil that makes him a shit liar. He doesn’t want to lie, and he doesn’t want to brush this off. 

“No, no.” Dan shakes his head. “I want to kiss you.” He shuffles forward, following Phil until they’re back in a similar position. Though this time Dan is running a hand over the material of Phil’s tee shirt, resting it flat on his lower back to pull him even closer. 

There’s a confused low whine in Phil’s throat. 

“I really, really want to kiss you,” Dan continues, lightly running the tip of his nose up the bridge of Phil’s. “Like, a stupid amount,” he says before pressing a featherlight kiss to Phil’s forehead. Phil hums softly, leaning into Dan’s touch. 

“But I didn’t brush my teeth last night,” Dan explains, “and I don’t think this morning breath would be the best first impression.” 

Dan pulls away, shuffling back down to look Phil in the eye with a shy smile. He nervously bites at his bottom lip while Phil just looks back at him with those wide, blue eyes. 

They soften, then Phil cracks a smile of his own, the corner of his mouth tugging up the slightest bit. 

“If I cared about first impressions, I wouldn’t have gotten to know the big heart inside of the arrogant, opinionated hot shot I met all those weeks ago.” 

“Did you really think that about me?” Dan frowns. He knows he can come off as a bit abrasive, and he’d be lying if he didn’t show up that day with about a million preconceived notions about the man he was going to be working with, but hearing it come from Phil feels like a small dagger twisting in his stomach. When he first met Phil, he didn’t want to like him, and he didn’t want Phil to like him either. But now? Now he thinks that’s kind of all he wants. 

“Still do,” Phil says. He does an odd sort of blinking thing that _might_ be a wink, or just getting some dust out of his eyes, but Dan can’t dissect it any further because Phil is leaning forward again, pressing their lips together. 

Dan gets lost in the feeling for a moment, soft, tentative lips on his, sharing all of the gross morning breath the world has to offer before Phil’s words register in his clouded brain. Dan pulls back with a scrunched up nose and a low, whiny, “ _Hey!”_

“I’m joking,” Phil is quick to say, smiling wide. “You weren’t like that at all. Your reputation doesn’t precede you.” 

Phil pauses to purse his lips in thought for a second. “Actually, you _are_ really opinionated, but I don’t see that as a bad thing. I like how passionate and opinionated you are. It’s hot.” 

“You’re hot,” Dan hums before his brain can stop his mouth from moving. He feels the heat on his cheeks spreading down his neck, but Phil only smiles wider. 

“Oh,” Dan says, lifting a brow. “I can actually say that now, can I?” 

“Be my guest.” Phil bumps their noses together. 

Dan snorts, his hand on Phil’s back moving to playfully shove at Phil’s shoulder. Phil is quick to use the leverage, pulling Dan on top of him as he rolls onto his back. Their lips find each other again once they’re pressed chest to chest, and any thoughts of his rancid breath are wiped from Dan’s mind with the feeling of one of Phil’s hands running down his side and the other tugging at his messy curls. 

“This is really bad,” Dan eventually whispers against Phil’s lips. 

“Oof,” Phil chuckles, pulling back. “I’ve been told I’m a good kisser. Please don’t bruise my ego.” 

“Not the kissing.” Dan rolls his eyes before leaning forward to press a few chaste kisses to Phil’s mouth. “This is very good,” he says between a couple more. “I meant,” Dan pulls back to gesture between the two of them, “ _this_ is not a good idea.” 

Phil’s eyebrows scrunch together as he lets out a confused hum in response. “Why’s that?” he asks. 

Dan leans back down, resting his weight on his elbow beside Phil’s head. He brushes his thumb between Phil’s brows, smoothing out the concern there. 

“We’re working on this show together. I think they wanted to find us compromising on designs, not in compromising positions.” 

Phil snorts. 

“It’s not funny!” Dan says through his own laughter. “Okay, it’s kind of funny,” he acquiesces. 

“We don’t have to, like, broadcast it,” Phil says. Then, he frowns. “Unless you want to just forget this happened.” 

Dan shakes his head fervently. He runs his hand through Phil’s messy hair—there’s still some paint in it that they didn’t quite manage to pick out last night. It’s a similar shade to the paint under Dan’s nails. Dan leans down to kiss him. 

There’s a lot to unpack here. There’s a lot of feelings to wade through, decisions to make. 

There’s the whole issue of them working together—the years and years Dan spent working towards being perceived as a professional, only to go and do the most unprofessional thing the second he gets the biggest opportunity of his career. And then there’s that nagging worry in the back of his mind, the one where he doesn’t necessarily want his grandmother to find out he’s gay because she’s watching the home network on a random afternoon a few months from now. 

But all Dan can really think about, all he really _wants_ to think about at this moment, is how perfect Phil’s lips seem to fit against his. 

“I don’t think I can stop kissing you now,” Dan says when he comes up for air, immediately diving back down the second the words leave his mouth. 

Phil hums, Dan can feel him smiling into the kiss. He smiles, too. 

When Dan pulls back, hours or seconds later, Phil wiggles a hand between the two of them. 

“Keep it low-key?” Phil lifts a brow. 

Dan snorts. “What? Are you trying to shake my hand?” Phil giggles and Dan ignores his hand, pushing it out of his way to grab a fistful of Phil’s shirt instead.

“You’re so fucking weird,” Dan mumbles into Phil’s mouth. “I love it.” 

They don’t stay like that for much longer. Despite the fact that neither of them seem to want to part—Dan thinks he could stay there in that empty room in that empty house for the rest of time, as long as he’s allowed to kiss Phil—they both need to get back to the city, and they both are quite gross from a long day of work and sleeping on the floor. 

They collect their things and change back into their clothes from the previous day, and Dan knows he’s well and truly fucked when he realizes he’s upset seeing Phil change out of his shorts and back into his own jeans. He could blame it on the paint fumes, but honestly even he can admit that would be an incredibly weak lie. 

After they lock up and pile into Dan’s car, they stop by a little local café. Dan loses a particularly heated round of rock, paper, scissors, and consequently runs in to grab them both a coffee and a few pastries for breakfast on the road. 

It all feels so… domestic, in a way only it could between two people who have literally been renovating a house together. 

Music plays faintly through the speakers of Dan’s car, neither of them paying much attention to it as they sip coffees and chatter the whole ride home. Honestly, if the music stopped, they probably wouldn’t even notice. They never seem to run out of things to talk about, especially with Phil’s constant narration of everything he sees out the window. If Dan were a more inexperienced driver, the distraction of Phil would probably get them in a wreck. He guesses it already has, just in a way that doesn’t involve metal crashing into metal. 

There’s something so easy about it, like the flick of the switch that blurred the lines between co-hosts and _maybe friends_ and something _more_ was always supposed to be on. It feels right in a way Dan has never truly felt about another person before. That in and of itself is overwhelming, but for whatever reason, it doesn’t activate any of his usual fight or flight responses. 

When Dan pulls up to the curb outside of Phil’s building and flicks his hazards on, he turns to find Phil already looking at him. 

“Please leave your driver a five star rating,” Dan jokes. 

Phil’s eyes crinkle at the corner as he smiles. He leans across the center console, a hand on Dan’s thigh as he kisses him. It makes Dan’s head spin a little. He’s not sure if he’s going to get used to that anytime soon. He’s not sure if he wants to. 

As Phil squeezes at Dan’s leg before he pulls away, Dan realizes there’s no going back. He wants this, whatever this is, no matter how fucking weird it is that it’s Phil Lester who he’s looking at with stars in his eyes. A name Dan would curse a few months prior, and now he wants to be cursing it for far, _far_ different reasons. 

“Keep it low-key?” Dan asks, biting his lip. 

Phil nods. “Whatever you want.” 

Dan’s brows tug together. “What do _you_ want?” 

“You,” Phil replies immediately. 

The car instantly feels like it’s five thousand degrees with the sureness in Phil’s voice. Dan knows his cheeks are probably bright red. He doesn’t really care for once. 

“Also a shower,” Phil adds with a scrunch of his nose. Dan laughs, the loud hoot is probably too much for the small enclosed space, but neither of them seem to mind it. 

“Okay.” Dan leans across the center console to shove at Phil’s shoulder before pressing the release on Phil's seatbelt. “Get out of here or I’ll turn the meter back on.” 

Phil follows Dan’s orders with a roll of his eyes and another stolen kiss before he turns to hop out of the car. 

“You have my number,” Dan calls, looking up at where Phil is standing in the open car door, “feel free to text me about something other than paint chips or weird antiques you want to DIY.” 

The image of Phil’s bright smile as they say their goodbyes is imprinted into Dan’s brain. It remains, even as Dan watches Phil walk all the way to his front door. There’s a similar lopsided, toothy expression on his own face when he finally pulls away. 

It stays there long after he’s driven home. 


	8. Chapter 8

Sundays are for sleeping in. If Dan lives by any sort of moral code, the first commandment is outlawing early alarms on Sundays. Any alarms, actually—Dan takes his days of rest quite seriously. If he somehow manages to wake up before ten, he doesn’t roll out of bed until at least noon. Those are just the rules. 

So when the marimba of his phone leaks out of his dream and into reality, Dan groans a soft, mangled “ _noo_.” He briefly wonders where the hell the weekend has gone as he lets his phone continue to go off, incorrectly assuming Sunday has passed him by and it’s already the next work day. There’s some logic there, being that the usual late afternoon sun isn’t peeking through his blackout curtains and he doesn’t have to pull his duvet over his head to avoid the bright rays, but as his brain slowly wakes, Dan realizes that it isn’t his alarm in his ear, but his ringtone. 

“I am going to kill whoever…” Dan groggily grumbles, patting around the empty pillow next to him until his hand wraps around his phone. When he blinks his eyes open and reads the caller ID, his bite softens. 

But only slightly. 

“Phil, do you have any idea what time it is?” Dan tries to sound annoyed, but it falls flat. Be it his sleepy brain, or whatever soft spot for Phil he has that’s been ripped wide open. 

“Dan. Hi,” Phil says instead of answering Dan’s question. Then, after Dan blinks his eyes a few times, silent over the phone, “Early,” he adds meekly. 

Dan rolls his eyes and pulls his phone away from his ear, squinting at the time and groaning before putting it on speaker and dropping it by his head. It’s six-fucking-thirty in the morning. On a Sunday. And Dan is awake. He doesn’t even get up this early on weekdays. 

“When I said you could use my number for things other than business I was assuming it was implied to not call me before the sun comes up.” Dan ignores the fact that there is a faint soft glow coming from behind his curtains. Six a.m. should be illegal. 

“Well,” Phil drawls out on the other line, “about that…” 

Dan rolls over with a groan. “Phil, I am going back to sleep,” Dan says, his voice muffled as he buries his face in his pillow. 

“Wait, wait!” Phil’s voice is tinny through the phone speaker as his voice gets louder. “Hear me out.” 

“I’m listening,” Dan grumbles, turning his head to the side so Phil can actually hear him. He’s awake now, there’s no denying it. He doubts he’ll be able to actually fall back asleep. 

“So there’s this estate sale, I google mapped it and it’s only like an hour and a half out of the city aaand,” Phil sings, “there’s an open house at ten fifteen minutes away from it.” 

“Ugh, I don’t want to get up.” Dan sighs dramatically. “But you’re ticking all my nosy bitch boxes.” 

Phil makes an excited, encouraging noise on the other end of the line. Dan starts to kick his legs free from his duvet, shivering at the chill in the air of his apartment. This is where he’d usually curl back into bed, savoring the warmth and refusing to wander out into the outside world, but he guesses the prospects of Phil are enough to make him stray from routine without a second thought. 

Wait- he means the prospects of poking around and judging another realtor’s house. That’s it. That’s the motivation. 

It’s funny that he even tries to convince himself that’s true. 

“Is this, like, a work thing, or a date, or do you just want a chauffeur?” Dan flies through the question with a huff of a laugh, hiding his genuine curiosity—and insecurity—in his teasing. 

Phil’s laugh comes through the speaker. Dan picks his phone back up just to press the sound to his ear. 

He’s really gone for it, isn’t he? 

“It’s only a date if you pick me up and buy me lunch,” Phil responds casually, easily. “Speaking of,” he adds before Dan can respond, “do you want to pick me up in an hour?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Dan says as he pulls himself up out of bed. “I’ll see you in a bit.” 

“Thank you!” Phil calls before the line goes dead. Dan shakes his head with the widest grin on his face, looking down at his phone in his hand. 

It’s been a long time since he’s felt like this—if he’s being honest, has he ever felt like this? A swirling, fluttering in his stomach, excitement for what’s to come trumping his desire to burrow back in bed. There’s a low tingling buzz under his skin that doesn’t seem to go away, even with the too hot spray of his steaming shower. It really all feels foreign. 

There’s a reason for that, if Dan lets himself actually reflect upon his refusal to have any sort of personal life outside of work, but that’s typically something he likes to ignore. Phil is hard to ignore though, images of his sleep-mussed hair and crooked smile seeking permanent residence behind Dan’s eyelids when he closes them to rinse the shampoo out of his hair. 

Dan doesn’t dwell too much on his shower being twice as long as usual. He doesn’t think twice about the extra attention he’s paying to how he looks as he gets ready. If you asked if he spends more time obsessing in his foggy bathroom mirror over the product in his drying curls than he does on days he’s going to be on camera, he would lie right through his teeth. 

He manages to brush his teeth twice, he swaps out his typical silver hoop earring for a new gold one and then back to the silver four different times, and he actually remembers to apply chapstick for once. There was a vague plan to do laundry later on—prior to any phone calls from any Phil Lesters—so Dan ends up standing in front of his wardrobe in his pants with his hands on his hips, face all scrunched up as he tries to make a decision. 

It’s getting chillier out, finally the time of year in which it actually makes sense for people to be wearing long sleeves and jumpers—like Dan does throughout summer, regardless of the temperature. Most of Dan’s favorites are beyond needing a wash at this point, the floor below his feet looking like a black and white sea of stripes and odd color blocked patterns ready to swallow the first sign of color whole. 

After much debate, and more than a few scrunchy nosed sniffs at every pair of jeans he pulls off the floor, Dan settles on a black turtleneck with some fun zips that he finds in the back of his wardrobe and his nice track pants that taper at the ankles. Basically, the nicest he can manage to look without wearing something that desperately needs to be washed. They _were_ quite expensive trousers though, so he thinks he’s done well enough as he turns a few times in the large mirror resting up against his bedroom wall. Even he can’t justify referring to his ass as a pancake when he’s wearing these, and maybe that was just his plan all along. 

Breakfast is foregone when Dan grabs his phone off the charge and sees the time. Apparently blankly staring into the mirror whilst debating putting every moisturizing product he owns on his face does indeed eat up a solid twenty minutes of real time. Who knew? 

Dan hastily shoves his feet into his white trainers and takes a five minute detour via the bathroom mirror to fuss with his hair again before finally making it out the front door. The guy has seen him properly disgusting, sweaty and covered in demo debris, hair pushed back with paint on his forehead, _hell_ , Phil had kissed him with arguably the worst morning breath Dan’s ever had, so he’s not really sure why he’s being so obsessive about how he looks now. 

Perhaps it’s because Friday night and the previous morning didn’t really feel _real_. None of it has, if he’s being honest. But this? This doesn’t feel like a paint fume fever dream. This feels all too real. There’s a sort of clarity in an early Sunday morning. Thoughts of work and things he needs to get done refuse to take precedent for once, and all he can really mull over in his head as he turns down familiar roads is how _much_ he likes Phil. 

And how much he wants Phil to like _him_. 

He’s too busy fretting over his choice of fragrance, or if he should pop by a coffee shop despite already being a bit late, to even realize that he’s made it all the way to Phil’s without booting up Google maps. 

Things happen in that funny sort of way. Life happens in that funny sort of way. Falling into routines and finding spots in your brain to store someone’s favorite shade of green, when green isn’t even their favorite color. Or memorizing the easiest shortcut to their place that a smart satellite won’t catch without ever making the conscious decision to do so. 

Phil is leaning against the side of his building teetering two large coffees on top of a bright pink box in his hands when Dan pulls up. His laugh is loud when Dan rolls down his window to shout “ _Uber’s here!”_ Phil’s legs seem barely attached to his brain as he walks towards the car, nearly tripping on the curb, but he catches himself at the last second. There’s almost another small disaster when he tries to open the passenger door, but he somehow manages to get all of his limbs inside the vehicle without any major scrapes or spilled coffees. 

It almost seems like a miracle, to both of them. And despite it all, Dan thinks he’s kind of obsessed with him. 

Even more so when a warm coffee is pressed into his hand. 

“Uhh,” Phil starts, looking a little bit like he’s trying to catch the thoughts in his head with a net. “Oat milk, one sugar.” He points to the coffee in Dan’s hand. “Doughnuts from the vegan place down the street.” He drums his fingers against the box that’s resting on his knees. 

Dan’s eyes go soft, looking from Phil, to his lap, then back again. 

“I could kiss you,” he says before he can do much rational thinking. He reckons they’re both operating on foggy morning brains. 

Phil only giggles, a rosy pink flushing the highest points of his cheeks. Dan thought he was beautiful in the moonlight, but he’s starting to realize he’s just plain beautiful. That realization only intensifies when Phil’s tongue pokes out between his teeth as he laughs. 

Dan’s eyes narrow, another realization hitting him. “I _can_ kiss you?” he asks slowly. 

Phil’s eyes crinkle at the corners as his smile widens, nodding his head. 

“You _may,_ ” Phil teases. 

“You’re annoying,” Dan says with a grin as he plonks his coffee in the cup holder and presses his warmed hand to the side of Phil’s face, leaning across the center console to kiss him.

It’s short and sweet—quite literally. Phil tastes of sugary coffee, a far cry from stale Domino’s, but Dan can’t say he has a preference. He just really likes kissing Phil, maybe he’s even a little put out that he hasn’t been doing it all along. That’s his excuse, if he needs one. He’s making up for the lost time of the past month, the past however long it’s been that the two of them have been working in the same business and the same city, actively avoiding each other. 

Dan steals another kiss, merely a peck pressed to the corner of Phil’s mouth as he distractedly grabs a doughnut from the box on his lap, before settling back in his seat. 

“Navigate me, Philly,” Dan says around the jammy doughnut in his mouth—he thinks it’s raspberry—passing off his phone and shifting out of park. 

“Aye aye, Danny!” Phil does a silly salute as he taps an address into maps and clicks Dan’s phone into its holder. 

“I hate that, let's never do that again.” Dan scrunches up his nose. Phil’s laughter fills the cabin of the car, and of course he proceeds to call Dan ‘Danny’ a total of seventeen times in the first half hour of their journey. 

The drive passes in a few long, blank stares out the windows and only somewhat coherent conversations as their coffees are quickly drained and the caffeine starts to kick in. The cool air hitting Dan’s face wakes him as well, Phil rolling down his window to catch the wind in the palm of his hand. Dan makes more than a few comments about how looking at a screen makes Phil incredibly carsick, yet being halfway out the window like a dog doesn’t—though he appreciates how clean and fresh the air feels in his lungs as they drive further away from the city. 

When Phil asks if it’s too cold, Dan shakes his head. He’s warm at the very center of his chest and he’s quite enjoying the short glances he steals of Phil’s serene face while his pale hand makes waves out the window. 

There’s a refuel when Phil starts to whine about needing to pee, and he returns to Dan by the petrol pump with a smile on his face and another round of coffees in his hands. Dan can’t even tease him when they’re pulling back on the road and he takes a sip to find it’s a far too sweet pumpkin spice latte. Not when Phil is bouncing his shoulders, doing a little happy dance in his seat as he sips his own. 

It’s good as fuck, too, and considering it _technically_ is autumn, Dan can’t really be the fall grinch about it. There’s something about this time of year that softens all his edges. It must be the crisp freshness in the air. Or maybe he just gets inappropriately excited about decorative gourds and colorful leaves, but he won’t admit to that. 

They suck those coffees down in record time, and Dan is starting to worry about having such a caffeinated Phil in close quarters. One of them is probably going to lose an eye from his excited pointing, and with Phil not wearing his glasses for once, Dan puts a tenner on it being him. 

“I spy with my little eye something… grey!” Phil says, after no more than five minutes back on the road. 

Dan shakes his head, looking forward. “You said you have a brother, right?” 

“Mhm,” Phil hums. 

“Older?” Dan asks. 

“Yeah.” 

“Thought so.” Dan bites his tongue, trying not to laugh. 

“Are you trying to distract me from the fact that you’re losing I Spy?” 

“Phil, I don’t think there are winners or losers in I Spy.” 

“Of course there is!” Phil’s hands fling around in Dan’s peripheral. “And I’m winning.” 

Dan rolls his eyes. “What did you say... grey?” 

Phil nods his head. 

Dan looks ahead, the asphalt in front of them, scattered trees around them, the various cars zooming by. It’s England—the majority of it is grey. “I dunno. The sky?” Dan tries. 

“Damnit,” Phil mutters under his breath. Dan snorts. 

“Still keeping score?” 

“Actually, I forgot.” 

With a sarcastic scoff, Dan takes a hand off the wheel to whack at Phil’s thigh. Phil whacks him right back, but instead of shoving Dan back into his own personal space, he grabs at his hand, entwining their fingers. 

Dan reckons he’s driven under worse conditions. 

Bringing Phil to an estate sale is apparently a similar experience to bringing a kid to a candy store. Except Phil is, like, thirty something and has his own wallet that doesn’t stop him from collecting an armful of random objects as they walk around the dusty old house. Dan almost wishes it were more of an auction situation, where Phil couldn’t pick up everything he sees that elicits an excited squeal, but after weighing the pros and cons he’s glad it isn’t. At least he seems to be stopped by the carrying capacities of his arms. 

Though he does hand Dan a few things, big pouty puppy dog eyes flashed the second Dan gives him that _look,_ and Dan realizes pack mule would be a better title than chauffeur. He doesn’t say no, though. Of course he doesn’t. 

There’s a few hats placed on Dan’s head that people have _definitely_ died in, but he doesn’t protest. Partly because he doesn’t want Phil to think he’s admitting that things can _actually_ be haunted, but mostly because he finds it incredibly cute every time Phil stops and puts everything he’s holding down to take out his phone and snap pictures. Low-light pictures of a grumpy looking Dan in all sorts of ugly top hats and quick, blurry selfies with the two of them looking equally as ridiculous in whatever Phil has put them in start to fill up his camera roll. 

Dan thinks the inside of his nose has been entirely replaced with moth balls by the time Phil has loaded them both up with far more than they can carry. There’s a question with each new thing Phil picks up. Usually, _“What the hell are you going to do with that?”_ But Dan never gets anything more specific beyond an excited smile or: “ _A project!”_

He can’t decide if he hates or loves how enamoured he is. He tells himself hatred is the word, but that would only be true if it were hatred thoroughly soaked in fondness. And also a lot of adoration. And also—okay, maybe Dan has an incredibly skewed definition of hate. 

Dan gapes when Phil doesn’t bat an eye at his grand total, not seeming phased by it at all. He guesses his judgement is hypocritical, he himself never thinking twice about long strings of zeros before decimal points when it comes to clothing or home decor. And all of this is technically for Phil’s business, so they’re not all that different despite the fact that Dan goes after new, sleek modern pieces while Phil gravitates towards… whatever the fuck all of this is. Old antique frames with haunting looking paintings or prints that Phil always manages to point out a dog in, rusting candelabras, strange knick knacks, and a disturbingly large amount of vintage doorknobs. 

What’s this guy’s deal with doorknobs? 

Dan asks as much while they’re carefully packing all the items, that will probably be inviting some small Victorian child’s curse unto Dan’s car, into his boot. 

Phil shrugs. “I just think they’re neat.” 

“I think you’re neat,” Dan says under his breath, bumping his shoulder against Phil’s before slamming his boot shut, hiding the soft smile on his face. He can blame the dusting of pink on his cheeks on the bite in the wind. 

“You do?” Phil asks, earnestly. When Dan looks over to catch his eye, Phil is ducking his head, looking down at his feet. 

Dan taps his foot against the side of Phil’s Vans. “No, not at all.” 

Phil snaps his head up, but Dan only smiles wider when he sees the smirk on Phil’s face. He bites his lip to hold back laughter. Without a second thought, Dan grabs at Phil’s jacket. He grips around denim and soft sherpa lining, pulling Phil into his space so he can quickly press a kiss to his mouth. Then, another on his cheek. And one more on the other for the road—because, you know, symmetry and all that. 

They’re about to head off, Dan has a foot in the car, ducking his head down, when something catches his eye. He missed it before, must have been too distracted by whatever ridiculous story Phil was telling, or—more likely—the view as he followed after him into the large dusty home. 

“Wait a second,” Dan says as he stands back up, shutting the car door. Another thud follows it, and Phil cocks his head to the side when they bump back into each other by the hood of the car. 

“Look at that.” Dan points, not necessarily waiting for Phil as he makes a beeline for the object pushed against the side of the estate. Phil is right on his heels though, present in the hand he can feel on his back. 

“Do you play?” Phil asks as Dan lifts the fallboard. He lightly runs a finger along the keys. It’s thoroughly coated in dust—the protective cover clearly not being used as often as it should—but they’re all there, and none feel loose or out of place. 

“Ages ago,” Dan says, sliding his finger back up the keys and pressing down on middle C. The sound is only slightly off to Dan’s ears as it rings out. He’s not an expert, but it doesn’t sound nearly as bad as he would expect from an old antique upright. He tinkers with a few more notes. 

“I had an absolute demon of a piano teacher when I was younger, so lessons were short lived. I always wanted to learn how to play. I even bought myself a shitty keyboard at one point, but never really had the time for it.”

“It sounds good?” Phil suggests. 

Dan laughs, nodding his head. “Yeah, it seems like it just needs a good wipe down and a tune up.” He stops his fingers on the keys and steps back to survey the instrument. It’s not _too_ tall and bulky, but it also isn’t a little dinky thing. Beyond the thick coat of dust, its black body underneath looks barely chipped or dinged, and the cabinet has that lovely ornate detailing antique pianos are known for. It looks as though there was once silver detailing, but it’s mostly gone by now. It’s quite attractive, and it might just be that one piece Dan has been missing. 

“Do you have the space for it?” 

Dan is pulled back down to earth by the gentle rub of Phil’s hand at his back. He focuses on that instead of the images swirling through his head of being sat on the bench in front of it. Sun streams in through the window across from him, warming his cheek as he plays. The sound his fingers are creating ring throughout a home that doesn’t look like his apartment at all. 

“Me?” Dan huffs a laugh at the very suggestion. “Not at all, no. Actually…” He turns his head to look at Phil beside him, gearing up to turn on the puppy dog eyes himself. 

“The front room...” Dan lifts his brows, looking from Phil, to the piano, then back with a suggestive smile. He can almost see the gears turning in Phil’s head as he puts together what Dan is saying. 

Phil looks at the piano. “Against that structural wall we couldn’t blow out.” 

“You’re in my head, Lester.” Dan grins. 

“Oh!” Phil looks around theatrically, with his eyes all wide. “It’s pretty dark and echoey in here. Can I come out?” 

Dan lifts his weight off one of his feet, using most of his weight to knock into Phil’s side. Their laughter rings far louder than the keys Dan was just playing, and it’s the first time Dan’s really aware that they’re not the only two humans on planet earth. He hadn’t even realized he was ignoring that fact earlier. Though for some reason, as they catch their breath and he looks around at the small smattering of people about the property paying them absolutely no mind, he decides he doesn’t really care at all. 

Which, in all honesty, is a big gigantic step of a realization to have as a beautiful idiot of a man is sticking his tongue out at him. Dan scrunches his nose in response, feeling completely weightless. It’s not at all a sudden feeling, he’s been feeling that lift of the invisible heaviness in his chest for a while now, but that doesn’t make it feel any less freeing. 

There’s a pinky promise made, Phil swearing he won’t pick up any more things if they go back inside to inquire about the price, and the older lady that rung Phil out smiles brightly at them when they step through the door. 

“Hello again,” she says warmly. Dan returns the greeting, though his polite smile falters the second he steps up to her little makeshift counter and realizes the presence next to him is no longer there. He looks over his shoulder, spotting Phil with his back turned, fluffing a garishly bright pillow on an old wingback chair upholstered in a completely different, horrific pattern. Dan shakes his head, rolling his eyes as he turns back to the woman running the sale. 

She’s holding laughter behind her hand, and Dan briefly wonders if there’s anyone out there that Phil _doesn’t_ get this warm reaction out of. 

He’s just… lovable—embodying warmth as if he’s got the sun tethered to a string like a small child toting along a helium balloon. 

Even if he’s, fucking, shoving the ugliest pillow on god’s green earth under his arm. 

Dan doesn’t have to think about putting a polite smile on. It’s already there, and it’s very genuine. 

“The piano out front.” Dan nods towards the door. 

“Oh honey, if you can take it out of here it’s yours,” she says before he can even inquire. 

Dan shakes his head. The piano is in great shape. He’s no expert, but it’s a far cry from a junker. 

“Let me give you something for it.” He can’t in good conscience swipe it for nothing. 

It’s the woman’s turn to shake her head this time. The corner’s of her wrinkly eyes crinkle further as she looks beyond Dan with a soft smile. Dan doesn’t even want to know what Phil’s getting up to. 

“Your partner’s already put me well in the green today, and I was planning on paying to junk it anyway if no one wanted it,” she explains. Dan only fixates on the word _partner_ a little. 

“See?” Phil’s voice in Dan’s ear makes him jump, he hadn’t even heard him approaching—which is a shock for Phil, considering his clumsy track record. “At least someone appreciates my treasure hunting.” 

The woman behind the counter laughs and Dan makes a point to turn his head so Phil can witness his eyes rolling to the back of his head.

He looks back to the woman, pulling his wallet out of his pocket. “I can have someone from Howell Realty pick it up tomorrow, if that’s alright? Let me give you my card.” He slides one out, but doesn’t close his wallet. “And however much additional damage he’s done,” he adds, sliding a few notes out as well. 

There’s an ignored protest from Phil, and a hearty chuckle from the woman. She takes his card and his money, and Phil hugs that ugly-ass throw pillow to his chest the entire duration to their next destination. 

Which, it’s a quick drive, but god that pillow is horrible. 

The open house is a bit of a bust, but they still find their own fun in it anyway. Dan is satisfied with the ego stroke he gets at how uninspiring the home’s staging is—seriously who even likes mid century modern? And why did they choose to stage this house as if it hasn’t been touched since the ‘70s? 

They gossip about the agent showing the house when they’re out of ear shot, and Dan’s shocked that they don’t get kicked out for their loud, uncontained giggles alone. Dan rolls his eyes whenever Phil claims a piece in the house _‘Isn’t all that bad!’_ They are, that bad. And Phil takes at least five cookies off the plastic serving tray set out on the horrible yellow kitchen countertop. 

“You’re a menace for sugar,” Dan whispers, looking around the bend of the kitchen as Phil grabs two more. 

“I think I’m just hungry,” Phil says, meek. He’s hiding behind the cookie in his hand when Dan turns back to look at him. 

Dan hoots out a laugh and grabs Phil’s wrist. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” 

An idea had started circling its way around Dan’s head on their ride up to the estate sale, and when he sees the similar signs again on their way back, he goes with it. 

If he’s realized anything at all lately, it’s that even the most boring situations are fun with Phil—not like he necessarily thinks this would be boring, quite the opposite actually, but he’s not sure if it’s Phil’s jam as well. 

“Oh!” Phil peers out the window when Dan pulls off the main road, into the lot of the farmer’s market. “What are we doing?” he asks when they pull to a stop. 

“I’m buying you lunch.” Dan smiles at Phil as he shuts off the car. 

Phil absolutely beams in response, and he’s the one to lean across the center console this time. Dan takes his kiss greedily, as if they aren’t in the parking lot of an outdoor market and both of their stomachs aren’t increasingly rumbly. It’s a grumble from his own stomach that pulls them apart, Phil giggling against his mouth before falling back in his seat and opening his door. 

“Dan! Dan!” 

Dan looks to the left as he hands a note over for the big, round loaf of sourdough he’s only just managed to squeeze into his tote bag amongst the various veggies he’s picked up and other baked goods—of the sweeter variety—that Phil slipped in. He lost Phil about five minutes ago, but he didn’t fret about it too much, considering how far could an over six foot tall man really get at a little farmer’s market. 

Apparently, far enough that he loses sight of him. 

“Dan! They have pumpkins!” Phil’s voice calls again. This time Dan’s able to hone in on his direction, looking to the left and smiling when he spots Phil three booths over. He’s doing little excited tappy hops by a bunch of pumpkins on the pavement, and Dan can’t help but compare him to those silly shiba inu videos he loves. 

Dan smiles and says a polite, “Have a good day,” when he’s handed his change, and continues to grin as he makes his way over to Phil. 

And that is how Dan ends up with two “big boys”—Phil’s words, not his, though he approves—buckled up in his back seat like small children. 

Phil drives a hard bargain. Dan still isn’t sure that they’ll survive the entire spooky season getting them now, but he can’t deny that they’re going to look absolutely adorable on the front porch of the flip house. 

The other six small decorative gourds sitting between the two pumpkins were entirely Dan’s doing, he can’t blame that on Phil. They’re going to look so cute on the kitchen island Dan could squeeze one to death right this second. 

“Do you think if you squeezed hard enough you could pop a pumpkin?” Dan muses aloud. 

“Maybe if you sat on it,” Phil says. 

“That’s not squeezing, though. That’s just brute butt force.” 

“Like with your thighs,” Phil corrects. 

Dan hums. “You might be onto something there.” 

He doesn’t think his car has ever been filled with so much laughter. 

Phil takes the grand tour of Dan’s apartment via a beeline for the toilet. Dan only teases him a little though the door—he told him that fancy tea from the farmer’s market would go right through him if he downed the whole thing on their drive back—before trudging up the stairs to the kitchen. 

He makes sure to leave the stupid glass door wide open. He doesn’t really fancy taking a trip to A&E and he’s sure Phil would find a way to break his big nose on it. And he hums to himself as he starts to unpack his bag and pull a few things out of the fridge. 

Dan’s cutting around the big tear in the sourdough loaf from when they were snacking on it in the car when he hears the soft padding of socks against tile. Before he can turn, there’s two arms wrapping around his middle. He feels warm as Phil presses up against his back, a huff of breath he feels through his turtleneck, a- _teeth?_ Did Phil just bite his shoulder? 

“Did you just bite me?” Dan says aloud, incredulously, but he makes no move to pull away. 

“No,” Phil replies, nuzzling his nose into the soft wool of Dan’s sweater at the crook of his neck. 

Dan huffs out a laugh, leaning back into Phil’s front. “You’re something else.” 

The arms around Dan’s waist should probably be much more of a hindrance than they actually are as Dan and Phil shuffle around his small kitchen, Dan washing and slicing vegetables and Phil—well, Phil not doing much of anything really besides clinging onto Dan and making quiet comments in Dan’s ear about his knife skills in some faux cooking show announcer voice. Definitely not a hindrance. 

Dan gets the grip around his waist loose enough to procure a pan from a lower cabinet and a comfortable quiet falls between the two as he clicks on the hob and starts to assemble their sandwiches. The click of the gas, the sizzle of the bit of water left in the pan from Dan’s hasty rinse and dry, Phil’s soft little breathy exhales against his neck. 

The quiet of the room isn’t at all reflective of the inside of Dan’s head though. Despite how easy and comfortable he feels falling into whatever this is, he can’t stop fixating on _whatever_ this is. It’s sad really, at least Dan thinks it’s sad, that he likes to think he’s so not about labeling and stuffing things into boxes, yet his brain just keeps folding up flat packs like it’s some sort of assembly line. 

Maybe it’s more about security than anything else. He doesn’t think he wants casual, and he’s been over hookups for a while now. Though the quieter, rational part of his brain knows he can’t really slot Phil into the box of flings—he’s unsure, yeah, but this doesn’t at all feel like a fleeting thing. 

Maybe it’s about communication, then. He’s really quite rusty. It doesn’t help when he finds safety in living in his own head, but communication is always a start. 

“Do you like the word partner?” Dan blurts out as he swipes _I can’t believe it's not_ \- no seriously, it’s not butter against a side of a bread slice. He bites his lip, picking up another. Phil’s chin digs into his shoulder a bit as he adjusts his grip around his waist. 

“Like, yee-haw, howdy partner?” Phil deadpans in his ear. 

“No.” Dan drops his knife to fully lean back against Phil. “You absolute…” he scans the countertop, “ _spoon_. Like, the lady at the estate sale. She called you my partner,” he explains, absently rubbing a thumb against Phil’s arm. 

“Oh. Like business partner. I guess it’s not too far off.” Phil shrugs. 

That hadn’t even registered to Dan. Obviously they just looked like two business associates in real estate or home design. Obviously she wasn’t saying they were-

“ _Oh,”_ Phil says in a softer voice a few moments later, stopping Dan’s thoughts short.

“Aw,” he coos as he squeezes tight around Dan’s middle, burying his face in his neck. “You thought she meant _partner_ partner.” 

Dan does a small nod, his face not dissimilar to the tomato slices on the cutting board in front of him. He reckons they’d sizzle if he slapped one to the side of his cheek. He considers doing it for a second, just to shy away from the conversation he was trying to steer them towards—suddenly far less brave. 

“Do _you_ like the word?” Phil stops any tomato slapping, pulling back only enough so he can look at Dan’s face. 

“I dunno.” Dan looks down at the counter, fiddling with the knife he just put down. “It doesn’t bother me, I don’t think.” 

Phil loosens his grip, unwrapping himself from around Dan, though a hand remains gently at his lower back as Phil leans against the counter to properly look at him. Dan prickles a bit at the foreign feeling of being _seen_ , but when he looks up to meet Phil’s eye, there’s a gentle tug at his brow. As if he’s trying to read Dan. Like he genuinely cares. 

The gentle repetitive swipe of Phil’s thumb at his back reminds him that being seen isn’t always a bad thing. He wants that from Phil. 

He _wants_ Phil.

Phil cocks his head to the side, giving Dan a soft smile that he can’t help but return. 

“Can I tell you a secret?” Phil asks. 

“I _knew_ you had like eleven toes or something,” Dan jokes. 

“What?” Phil’s eyes go wide. “I have ten! I’m pretty sure, at least. Last time I checked.” Phil’s brows tug further together, like he’s actually contemplating his whole toe situation. Dan doesn’t have the heart, or the breath through his wheezy laughter, to tell Phil he’d be just as infatuated with him even if he had no toes. 

“I’ve kind of been calling you my boyfriend in my head the past day,” Phil says, shy, once they’ve caught their breath. Dan flicks his eyes up as Phil looks down at his hand against the edge of the counter. “Let me know if I’m off base or if you’re not comfortable with that, or whatever,” Phil adds. 

Oh _._ Of course that’s what this is. Why was Dan even fretting about it being anything else? The second the word leaves Phil’s lips it feels so right. 

Dan walks his fingers the short distance across the counter until he hits Phil’s hand. Phil pushes off of it, letting Dan thread their fingers together. 

“I’m very comfortable with that.” Dan squeezes Phil’s hand, smiling when Phil looks up at him. “I just-” Dan looks up, shaking his head a little at his own damn self. “God, I’m dumb, I don’t know why I was worried that that wasn’t what was going on here.” 

Phil lets out a soft little huff of a laugh. “Well, we didn’t really…” He tugs his brows together, pursing his lips a bit in thought. “We didn’t talk about it or anything,” he finishes with a shrug. “It feels like we just… fell into it.” 

Huh. 

“It’s not supposed to be this easy, is it?” 

Phil hums, then he looks Dan dead in the eye, tilting his head a fraction to the side. “Why not?”

Dan… doesn’t really have an answer for that. Phil’s stumped him. It never really dawned on him that something could be so simple. Why should there be guessing games or heteronormative courting or anything of the like? 

The two of them, crowded up in Dan’s small kitchen, just feels as easy as breathing. Natural—like this is how they’re meant to be. It feels right. Phil feels right. 

“I still don’t…” Dan tries to find the words. “I can’t like… on TV…” 

Phil shakes his head. “I get it.” 

“You don’t have to justify it to me if you don’t want, or can’t right now,” Phil says, squeezing at Dan’s hand. Dan lets out a sigh of relief he wasn’t aware he had been holding in. 

“Business partner,” Phil adds with that odd wink of his, both eyes squeezing together. 

“Disgruntled co-host,” Dan corrects with a chuckle. 

“ _Annoying_ co-host.” Phil steps forward, pulling Dan closer by the tug of his hand. 

“I’m annoying?” Dan protests in a high whiny voice. “You’re the annoy-” The word dies off in a _hmph,_ Phil kissing it right off of Dan’s lips. It’s really more laughing and teeth clacking together than anything else, but Dan thinks he likes it this way—imperfectly them. 

“Question though,” Phil says, pulling back only enough so their lips don’t brush as he speaks. Their foreheads stay pressed together. Phil nudges his nose against Dan’s. 

“Yeah?” 

“You kissed me in the lot at that sale.” 

“Yeah,” Dan says softly. His stomach does a few turns, and not in that fluttery way, but Phil keeps a firm hold at his waist—reassuring. He’s not mad about it, just curious. And Dan can understand why. He reckons he was just being brave, perhaps a bit stupid as well. In the moment, Dan hadn’t even realized he should have checked with what Phil was comfortable with, he just acted on impulse. 

“Was that? I’m sorry,” he blurts out, worried despite Phil’s reassuring touches. 

Phil is quick to shake his head, their noses bumping together with a hushed, _“Oops”_ from Phil before he pulls back to look Dan in the eye. 

“No, no. I’m- that was fine. I’m okay with that. I just, you…” 

“I don’t…” Dan trails off. Use your words, his mind provides, but he’s honestly not sure what those words are. 

This is all probably something he should have navigated years ago. Even though he knows there isn’t any sort of universal fixed timeline of figuring it all out and discovering what living authentically to himself really looks like, he can’t help but fall back into feeling like he’s done it all wrong—just how his brain supplies him another flat packed box. 

Maybe it’s not supposed to feel like some big thing. Maybe it can be as simple as knowing he’s not quite ready to explicitly broadcast his personal life on television, to coworkers, to acquaintances, and perhaps even his family, but he also doesn’t want to stop himself when he feels compelled to squeeze Phil’s hand or lean into a touch at his back in instances where it feels safe to do so. 

He wishes there wasn’t an awful creeping feeling of shame in his chest for not having it all figured out by now. He wishes there didn’t have to be such a struggle to begin with. 

“I don’t really think _I_ know.” Dan goes with honesty. That’s all he has to give, really. It’s all he wants to give Phil, anyway. “I don’t- I haven’t really done all this,” Dan gestures between the two of them, “in a non, like, _very_ casual way in a long time.”

“Or ever, really,” he adds with a huff of a nervous laugh, biting at his bottom lip. 

Phil hums as his thumb brushes against the soft material of Dan’s sweater. 

“You’ve been in a relationship with your job for the better half of a decade?” Phil suggests. 

Dan snorts, mostly in a stupefied awe at how easily Phil can read him. Or, perhaps, they may just be far more alike than anyone would think. He nods. 

“We’ll figure it out together. Or not, if that’s what you want. Whatever you’re comfortable with, as long as we’re on the same page.” 

“Where did you come from?” Dan asks with a fond smile, instead of mulling over Phil’s words. He can do that later, when he’s not so embarrassed by the tightness in his throat and the moisture behind his eyes. 

“Rawtenstall,” Phil replies, seriously. “It’s a bit North of-”

“No, idiot.” Dan cuts him off with a pinch at his side. Phil squeaks and Dan rubs at the spot, even though he knows he barely got him. “I _meant_ you’re too good for this world.” 

Phil simply shrugs, a shy smile tugging at his lips. Dan pulls away, only so he can lift both his hands between them, cupping each of Phil’s cheeks and kissing him as if it’s the only way he can express his emotions. Maybe it is. Maybe kissing Phil is just nice. 

Maybe they get a little carried away with it. 

“Okay, can I have my sous chef back so we can eat?” Dan asks once they finally part, Phil’s grumbly stomach making them both giggle themselves out of their kiss. He turns back to the counter, a hand guiding Phil’s arm to his waist while his other reaches out for the package of cheese he pulled out of the fridge. 

“You don’t think this is annoying?” Phil asks, positioning himself so he’s pressed back up against Dan, his chin on Dan’s shoulder. 

“Yes,” Dan laughs, laying two slices on his sandwich, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t like it.” 

Phil’s satisfied hum rumbles against his back. It’s very much worth the limited mobility. 

“Cheese?” Dan asks, holding up a slice. 

“Gross.” 

“It’s not real, you might like it.” 

Phil pushes back, keeping his grip at Dan’s waist. Dan twists a bit to look back at him. His head is cocked to the side a bit, looking at the slice of cheese in Dan’s hand with suspicious, squinty eyes. 

Dan snorts when it clicks, a full blown cackle following it as Phil only looks more and more confused. 

“Phil,” Dan wheezes. “It’s _real_.” He wiggles the slice between his fingers. “I meant that it’s vegan cheese,” he manages to get out despite his laughter. 

“Oh.” Phil looks less suspicious, but not by much. Dan offers him a tear of it, and he takes it with a slow caution. His face screws up the second it hits his tongue. Dan tries to hold back his laughter. 

“That’s awful,” Phil gets out between sticking out his tongue, as if the air of the room will get rid of the taste. 

“I wish I could tell you it’s better when it melts,” Dan says, turning back to the counter and placing the remaining ripped slice on his own sandwich, “but it doesn’t.” He carefully places the top slices of bread on each of them. 

“It doesn’t get better?” Phil asks in his ear. 

“It doesn’t melt.” Dan laughs, sliding his sandwich into the hot pan and reaching for a spatula. He presses it until its flimsy plastic handle bends under the pressure. He nearly elbows Phil in the side as he flips it, but that doesn’t stop Phil from pulling away. 

“Are you _sure_ this isn’t annoying?” Phil asks, tapping a few fingers against Dan’s left rib. 

Dan smiles to himself, swapping his sandwich out to toast Phil’s. 

“Absolutely not.” 

“Your apartment is kind of weird,” Phil observes, looking around as he follows Dan out of the kitchen and to the lounge. 

“Mate, don’t get me started. It’s so fucked.” 

“I was going to comment on the glass door in your kitchen.” 

“I _know_ ,” Dan groans. “I only tolerate it because the rent’s cheap,” he says as they walk through the threshold of the lounge. “This isn’t an active ‘I like it here’ forever home type of deal at all.”

“That’s goo- oh!” Phil exclaims suddenly. “You have a fish!” 

Dan snorts, but before he can correct Phil, Phil’s plate is being thrusted into his hand. He takes it and watches with amusement while Phil bends over to peer into the tank, his hands on his hips. 

Dan takes his time setting their plates down at the table. He has to make his own fun every now and then, right? And right now it’s quite funny to watch Phil press his nose against the glass, even if it means Dan’s going to have to wipe it down later. 

After a solid minute of Phil searching around all the lush green plants and mossy decorative logs—Dan mostly taking the opportunity to, well, check out Phil’s ass—Dan pulls the plug. 

“There’s no fish in there, bub.” 

“Whaaat?” Phil whips around, making Dan jump. He’s met with a full, fat pouty bottom lip and big, sad blue eyes. It’s so pathetically cute that Dan feels bad for laughing. 

With laughter still rattling his chest, Dan slings an arm around Phil’s shoulder, turning him to look back at the tank with him. 

“I somehow got into watching these, like, aquascaping YouTube videos, because they’re so calming,” Dan explains, watching his java fern wave fluidly with the gentle current of his filter. “Like visual ASMR, I guess. You know what ASMR is?” 

“Dan, I’m a YouTuber,” Phil responds, as if it answers Dan’s question at all. But then it clicks. 

“Oh my god.” Dan squeezes at Phil’s shoulder, looking from the tank to his face to gauge the sincerity of whatever response he’s about to get. “Have you _made_ an ASMR video?” 

“No comment,” Phil says quickly, but the rapid reddening of his cheeks answer for him. Dan hoots so loud, he’s sure if he _did_ have fish it would scare them. 

“I’m surprised you haven’t seen it,” Phil acquiesces. 

“I’ve only hate-watched your DIY and reno videos.” 

Phil lets out a deep sigh. He leans into Dan’s side. “It _is_ technically a DIY video. AmazingPhilDIY: ASMR Coffee Table Staining,” he recites. 

“Oh my god,” Dan laughs. 

Phil ducks his head into the crook of Dan’s neck as they both shake a bit. 

“It’s got like… ten million views,” Phil says, muffled against Dan’s sweater. 

“ _Jesus_.” Dan whistles. “Okay.” He abruptly pats at Phil’s shoulder, then spins them around. “We’re watching this right the fuck now.” Dan grabs their plates off the table and herds Phil over to the sofa. He turns on the TV and connects his phone to YouTube, tossing it to Phil and giving him a pointed look when he doesn’t immediately bring the video up. 

“You’re not gonna want to watch this with food, it’ll definitely ruin both our appetites,” Phil protests. “Why don’t you put on one of your fake fish videos first?” he suggests, trying to pass back his phone. 

Dan narrows his eyes. “Fine,” he huffs as he takes it. “But don’t think you’ve gotten yourself out of this,” he warns. 

With Dan’s curated playlist of favorite videos on the TV, they finally dig in. Through mouthfuls of sandwich, Phil asks no less than one million questions about absolutely everything happening on the screen. Normally, that would bother Dan, but when it’s Phil he doesn’t seem to mind. There’s a knee and a shoulder that bumps into his every now and then, and it doesn’t even cross his mind that it’s gross when he mumbles out answers with his own mouth half full. 

“All these people have fish. If your tank is perfect for a fish, why don’t you get one?” Phil asks, interrupting Dan’s long retelling of literally every single step he took in setting up his tank—what can he say? He’s a passionate guy. 

Dan sighs. “When I’m confident in keeping another living thing alive for more than a few weeks, maybe I will. But for now I’m questionable at best with any of my plants that don’t like to be drowned in water.” He unfolds his leg and stretches it out to bump his toe against the sad, slightly browning succulent pot on his coffee table to prove his point. 

That sets off Phil’s whole monologue and iPhone gallery tour of all of his dead houseplants. Dan can only gasp in horror in response. He swats at Phil’s arm after the tenth photo of a _much_ crispier succulent than the one on his coffee table, Phil was the one that ordered a whole _fleet_ of houseplants for the flip house. Phil shrugs him off with a mischievous smile, one that’s a little bit more sinister now that Dan knows he’s sitting next to a serial killer. 

“That’s production’s issue, not mine.” 

“Phil Lester!” Dan swats at him again, absolutely scandalized. “You sadist!” 

“That is not at all what I am!” 

“Alright Phil, you keep telling yourself that.” 

Dan doesn’t let Phil forget about his fated ASMR video, and he eventually manages to wrestle his phone out of Phil’s hand to put it on. Phil watches through his fingers, bouncing as he’s leaning into Dan’s side, because Dan can’t control his laughter. Somewhere along the way—it’s a shockingly long video—Dan ends up horizontal, rolling around on the sofa, wheezing as he fails to catch his breath. All the while Phil raps his knuckles against Dan’s legs, pleading for him to put him out of his misery. 

The flat is suspiciously quiet when the video fades to black. 

Dan clears his throat. “Does that, like, turn people on?” 

Phil shrieks. “God! I hope not!” Dan looks up from his spot on the floor—because, yeah, he managed to roll himself onto the floor at some point towards the end of the video. Phil has his hands covering his face again, beet red behind his fingers. “I don’t wanna know!” 

“It _so_ does,” Dan decides. He kicks his foot up to poke Phil in the knee with his toe. 

“Shut _up!”_ Phil laughs as he grabs Dan’s foot, immediately holding it captive in a surprisingly strong grip. Dan isn’t struggling too much though, looking up at Phil with a fond, lopsided smile. He’s a bit breathless and Phil’s gently pressing his thumb into his arch. It feels nice. 

Dan briefly wonders if toes can get Stockholm syndrome. 

When he muses the thought aloud, Phil looks down at Dan’s socked foot in his hand with a horrified expression. 

“Do toes have feelings?” 

It’s hard to keep track of time when Phil is around. If Dan were something of a conspiracy theorist, he’d reckon it stops passing in a linear fashion—but there’s no logic in that. Somehow it feels like no time has passed at all when Phil squeezes at Dan’s thigh and hums something about _“probably should be getting home.”_

The sky beyond the window is dark, only the city lights providing visibility at this hour. The credits from the Netflix show Phil suggested they watch—minutes ago? hours ago? days ago? Dan won’t be placing any bets—roll on the television screen. 

Phil offers to take the tube, but Dan insists on driving him—mostly because he wants whatever curse manifesting in his boot to stop doing that and take Phil’s apartment instead. 

They both think it’ll be a quick thing, but then there’s a stop for dinner, and then Dan insists on helping haul Phil’s horrible items up the far too many flights of stairs of his building. And then, well. Then Dan doesn’t really leave. 

The bright yellow parking ticket on his windshield—blinding Dan just as much as the early morning sun he’s unsuccessfully shielding his eyes from with the green hood of a hoodie that doesn’t belong to him—is worth it, honestly. He doesn’t even care that he’s late for work. 


	9. Chapter 9

Dan has a lot of favorite times of day. 

When his bedside lamp is clicked off and his room is plunged into near darkness—thanks to the little crescent moon night light in the corner—and he drifts to the rhythm of a different heartbeat under his hand. When the light starts to stream into his room, a reminder that the two reluctant bodies need to roll out of their warm cocoon. That’s only his favorite time on days when warm feet meet the cold floor only to wander in the same direction, instead of parting at his front door—Dan to his office, Phil to his own flat. 

He reckons he likes mornings all the same though. Whether they are drenched in long, indulgent shared showers and learning just exactly how Phil likes his coffee and toast, or bumping limbs through hasty teeth brushing and cereal bars in Dan’s car being less of a road hazard than his speeding. 

Those may actually be his favorite—rushed mornings holding memories that make him blush. 

Dan likes the long drive to the flip house, where minutes feel like seconds and he laughs over his playlists. Twenty questions quickly becomes something more like twenty thousand, and I Spy wiggles its way into Dan’s heart. 

He looks forward to shared lunches, whether they be tucked away in secluded patches of grass with plates filled by craft services or the jog down the street to meet Phil on his lunch break, always finding a way to buy more time with him—even if that time is mere seconds. 

Infatuation is probably the word. Though Dan’s not so sure there’s anything fleeting about it. 

Fleeting though, fleeting is what he’s feeling today. 

It’s one of his favorite times, when filming for the day has been wrapped and everyone is trickling out to travel home under the darkening sky. It’s a routine Dan is feeling more than settled in, hanging back with Phil, always being the last to leave. Sometimes it’s to work through the night, sometimes it’s merely under the guise of work—that’s only for them to know. 

Today is starkly different. The house is full as Dan makes his way down the hall, then the stairs. Full but not of people. Nothing echoes anymore. Dan can’t tell if it’s comforting. 

It looks incredible. Dan would move in if he could. He kind of wants to. He’s been crunching numbers lately, calculating just how much of a stupid decision it would be. Very stupid, is the answer. Though didn’t he feel a similar way at the start of all of this? 

Working with Phil doesn’t seem stupid now. _Well-_ no. Beyond the jokes and teasing, there was absolutely nothing stupid about working with Phil. There’s no regrets, and Dan thinks this whole thing may have been the most fun he’s ever had. 

_Was_ , because it’s over now. Or nearly so. They film the final walkthrough bright and early tomorrow morning.

For some reason, it doesn’t feel like an ending. 

Phil is outside in the back garden. Stringing lights to the pergola last Dan checked—stepping away from his meticulous staging of the bookshelves and cozy sitting area to peek out the window. Just to make sure he hadn’t fallen off that wobbly ladder, if anyone asked. Phil built it himself, they stained the reclaimed wood together a few days ago. It looks good. Dan wishes he could say he’s surprised by it, but he’s long since questioned the things Phil can do once he’s put his mind to them. And maybe he’s never actually questioned his talent. 

Phil is _so_ talented. Dan still can’t quite figure out why the network wanted both of them. Phil could have probably done the entire show himself. 

He’s glad he didn’t. But he’s not going to leave his talent unacknowledged. He’s a bit obsessed with him, he can admit that now. 

Phil’s jacket is hung over one of the chairs at the dining table, beside Dan’s. Dan shivers with the tall glass doors pushed open on their track, the chilled autumn night’s air giving the house even more of a freshness. He pulls down the sleeves of his jumper and shrugs on his jacket. He grabs Phil’s as well and swipes one of the two bottles of celebratory wine production gifted each of them off the table. 

Dan has a foot out the large opening to the back garden when he stops to spin around. Surely it’ll be fine if he snags two of the pristine stemless glasses he meticulously placed—and wiped every single smudge and fingerprint off of—in the kitchen cabinet with the glass panels. He’ll make sure to thoroughly clean them and set them back after they use them, he tells himself as he pinches between two of them and carries it all out. 

Phil is sitting under the pergola, at the far corner by the pond, leaning against one of the supporting beams. He doesn’t move his head as Dan approaches, keeps it resting against the wood while Dan carefully sets the wine glasses and bottle down in the grass. No longer cradling the bottle in his arm, Dan shakes out Phil’s thick denim jacket and steps behind him. He gives Phil’s right shoulder a squeeze and Phil sits up straight, letting Dan drape his jacket over his arms. 

Everything about it just feels so right. 

Dan plops down in the new, soft grass beside him. He pours them each a glass of wine while Phil wiggles his arms into his jacket. The dark liquid only shines the slightest hints of a deep red under the hundreds of little globe lights strung above them. Dan can’t help but hold one up, admiring the shade for a lingering moment before passing it off to Phil. 

“Thanks,” Phil says softly. He holds the round glass in both hands, in that way he does, and instead of looking forward or leaning back against the pergola, his head finds Dan’s shoulder. 

Dan hums, content, as he sips his wine. They’ll have to stick around a while, or get up at some ridiculous hour tomorrow morning to take the train back to the house—and Dan’s car—but Dan doesn’t care about any of that right now. Whatever they end up doing, he’ll enjoy it because it will be with Phil. 

Right now, he just wants to have a glass of this fancy wine in the garden of a house he loves—with the guy he thinks he may just feel the same about. He’s savoring it, letting it burn over him at a delicious pace. They don’t need to rush. 

“Everyone gone?” 

“Mhm,” Dan hums. He lets his head rest against Phil’s, suddenly feeling far more tired than he thought he was. It could be the wine. It could be the warming heat between the two of them, no match for the brisk breeze on his cheeks. 

“Are you cold?” Dan asks, worried at how long Phil’s been out here in just a light jumper. 

Phil shuffles closer to Dan, pressing further into his side. His hair tickles at his neck before spreading warmth there. “Not anymore,” he says. 

“Sap.” Dan taps his knee against Phil’s. 

“Just telling the truth,” Phil quips before taking a sip of his wine. Dan briefly worries about him dribbling on his clothes with the funny angle he’s drinking at, but he ultimately decides he couldn’t care less. Calvin Klein would be so lucky to have Phil’s backwashed wine stains to accent their dark washed denim. 

The truth. That’s something he hasn’t been keeping from Phil, for the most part. Lately, ever since the lines blurred and all of Dan’s words in regards to Phil have started to begin with a B, Dan’s been an open book. 

There’s just… one thing he’s been keeping to himself. He’s not even sure why. Maybe because he’s afraid to be laughed at, or called out of his mind. But those are weak excuses, knowing Phil would be the last person to laugh at any of his dreams—no matter how ridiculous they are. 

This one’s quite mental. Even Dan can admit it, without the lectures from his accountant. 

“Hey,” Phil says after a few sips—a few quiet minutes of nothing but the low gurgle of the pond filter and their own breathing. It’s so quiet here, the stars so bright. Such an impossible reality for a guy so accustomed to the city. And yet, Dan yearns. 

“Hi,” Dan replies, soft and full of breathy laughter. 

“I was wondering…” Phil trails off, taking another sip. Dan runs his hand up and down Phil’s arm, generating heat they don’t necessarily need. It’s nice though, Phil leans into it. 

“Do you know why you were asked to do the show?” 

That stumps Dan. To this day, he’s still not entirely sure. He says as much. 

“I meant to ask them, at the start, but I got so caught up in everything it kept slipping my mind.” 

“I know,” Phil says quietly. 

Dan quirks a brow. He sets his glass down in the grass beside him, shifting so he can look at Phil. 

Phil, who’s all pouty at the loss of his Dan shoulder pillow. Dan lifts a hand to poke at his pushed out bottom lip. Then, because he can, he leans in to kiss it. Phil hums into it, giving Dan the in to get carried away. 

“Wait,” Dan says against his lips, pulling back to look at him with furrowed brows. “I want to know why!” 

Phil laughs. Under the soft lights above them, Dan can almost make out the color climbing his cheeks. It could be from the wine, or the cold, but the rest of his face says otherwise. He looks almost… _bashful._

Phil looks away, turning his head towards the pond off to his side. Dan studies the pink flushing his ear as Phil lifts his glass with both hands to take a sip. 

“I…may have put your name out there,” Phil says slowly, quiet. 

Dan doesn’t think he was expecting the full on snort that rips out of his chest. Phil whips his head around, looking at Dan with wide, confused eyes. He just can’t stop laughing.

Of course, _of course._

“You. Evil. Mastermind,” Dan manages to get out once he’s finished sending loud cackles out into the calm evening air. 

“Hey! I wasn’t plotting anything.” Phil shoves at Dan’s shoulder with a little bit too much force. Dan’s surprisingly quick about it, grabbing Phil’s wrist to tug him down with him. They only narrowly miss the wine bottle and Dan’s glass, Phil’s sloshing as he holds it high above his head, falling into Dan’s side. 

“Sounds an awful lot like what someone who was plotting something would say, hm?” Dan teases, pressing a few kisses to the side of Phil’s face before letting him sit back up. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Phil says quietly once they’ve sat back upright. 

Dan shakes his head immediately. There’s no reason for Phil to feel bad about this. It’s mostly funny, really. Very _them._

“You just did.” Dan smiles, knocking their knees together. 

“I just thought that maybe…” Phil purses his lips for a moment, looking away, then back to Dan. All Dan’s brain provides is: _cute cute cute_. “I thought that maybe we would work well together, you know? And not have the whole thing just end up in rubble and mistakes.” 

Dan hums. His brain is still cycling various compliments and terms of endearments towards Phil, he tries to reel it back in.

“What do you think now?” he asks, cocking his head to the side. “Do we work well together?” 

Phil smiles. “Absolutely.” he says, resolute—as if he just confirmed the color of the sky. 

Though, actually, with their track record, maybe Dan should stay away from any color related similes. He laughs at the thought, leaning into Phil’s side—laughs at the very notion that if he wanted, they could absolutely get into a row right now about whether the sky is blue or black. 

Phil laughs with him, for no reason other than Dan’s laughter, he guesses. He just feels so silly, so happy, around Phil. 

For a moment he lets himself simply look at him, staring like he’s brighter than any of the stars overhead. He is, Dan thinks. He absolutely is. 

That’s when the guilt starts to seep into the swirling affection in his chest. 

“There’s something I haven’t told you either.” Dan rips the plaster off. 

Phil looks at him, head slightly tipped to the side—open. “Yeah?” 

Dan takes in a deep breath. It swims around his head for a moment. He bites his lip. 

“I want to buy the house.” 

Phil’s face is… unreadable. Dan doesn’t know how to feel about that. 

“This house?” Phil asks. 

Dan nods slowly. 

With an exhale, Phil leans back, a palm flat to the cool grass as he tips his glass against his lips for the last dredges of liquid. Once he swallows, he turns his head to the side to give Dan that signature lopsided smile. “Me too.” 

“Wha-” Dan’s eyes go wide, then narrow. “ _Wot?”_

Phil just smiles wider.

Dan shakes his head, voice going high, a little hysterical in that screechy Dan way. “Fuck no, I am _not_ getting in another bidding war with you!” 

But Phil’s still smiling. Softer now, but he’s still smiling. Something glints in his eye, a smirk tugging at his lips. He asks one simple question, “Do we have to?” 

The cogs turn in Dan’s brain, clunking and whirring until they’re running smoothly and that same glint twinkles in his own eyes. Phil smiles wider when he sees Dan’s got it. 

_Of course._

Dan leans forward, picking up the half full wine bottle and pours the rest into both of their glasses. He holds his glass out to Phil, dark liquid sloshing against the curved sides but never spilling over. Phil meets him halfway, the clink of their glasses ringing out in the quiet of the night before cool glass is pressed to warm lips.

Then, red lips to lips. Lips to skin. Cherry red trailing from the corner of Dan’s mouth down his neck—the stars their only witness. 

It’s all so warm. 

Eventually, Phil pushes himself up from the grass, wobbling a bit on unsteady feet. Dan has that same floaty feeling in his head. He registers Phil moving around him, collecting their glasses and the empty bottle of wine, but he’s too busy staring at the Phil-shaped indent left in the grass to look up. He squints as he watches the blades slowly spring back into place, removing all evidence of the person that was just there. 

Dan doesn’t like the way it makes him feel. Maybe he’s just a little wine drunk, the cold air jostling it all around the second there’s no longer a warm body pressed against his own. He doesn’t realize there’s a soft whine of discontent in his throat until it reaches his ears. 

There’s a laugh from above him. 

Dan looks up, eyes all wide between a few blinks to adjust his eyes to the lights behind Phil’s head. Phil’s face is soft in the warm light, soft always. He’s looking down with the corner of his mouth tugged up in a way that can only be read as fond, his eyes the same. 

“Are you coming?” Phil holds out a hand, lopsided smile widening. 

Dan’s heart aches in his chest. Before Phil, he never knew how good an ache could feel. 

“Yeah.” Dan smiles. “Yeah, I am.” He nods his head slowly, letting Phil take his hand and pull him up in a way that almost sends them both toppling backwards. They remain upright, miraculously. No thanks to the giggles that rack their wine soaked bodies. 

“Train home?” Dan asks as they walk across the lawn, all knocking limbs and grabby hands leaning into each other. 

Phil makes a noise of disagreement next to him, the sound vibrating against the hand Dan has behind his neck. “Was thinking we could stay here,” Phil says, stopping at the threshold of the house to look at Dan. His eyes are so blue, even under the dark sky. “You know, for old time’s sake?” He cocks his head to the side and Dan feels compelled to reach out and cup his cheek, touch the soft skin there—so he does. 

“One last time,” Dan agrees, smiling. 

It doesn’t feel like an ending despite the finality of their words, more like a change in season—flipping the page to a new chapter. Though Dan’s keen on finding out how the book ends, he doesn’t skip ahead, living in the moment. 

They fumble over the threshold, full of laughter as Dan makes a questionable attempt at picking Phil up to lift him right over it. 

He’s never been one for spoilers, anyway. 


	10. Epilogue

There’s a hand buried in Dan’s curls, a finger twisting around one particularly loopy loop. Phil does that a lot, now that he can, never letting Dan forget that it’s his favorite thing to do. 

The room is warm, the house is full. 

They’re curled up in the corner of the sofa that hugs to the shape of Dan’s body. He knew they were doing something right when its L-shape fit perfectly into what they affectionately call the cozy lounge. Dan’s been toying with coining the term ‘slounge’, but it loses traction every time Phil insists it stands for ‘slutty lounge’—slutty, slutty lounge, in his exact words. Words that are often followed with a facefull of an ugly, definitely haunted throw pillow lobbed by Dan. 

Dan thinks he hates him, but he digresses. 

It only made sense that his sofa would fit in the room, given that he staged it with a similar model. Phil thought it was ridiculous when the movers took out the new one to replace it with its broken-in twin. Dan thinks Phil is ridiculous. It evens them out, a give and take. 

As Dan swapped out the sofas, Phil let them take away the stock art pieces Dan picked out, and now there’s an original by one of Phil’s friends hung on the wall behind the sofa. Dan thinks it’s far too colorful for the monochromatic scheme of the room—a give and take. 

They held on to a lot of pieces, running up their tab, but that was to be expected considering they both admitted to mostly shopping for themselves during production. The smart refrigerator remains in the kitchen, even if both of them eye it suspiciously from time to time. Dan likes the ice dispenser, Phil is still trying to figure out how to get it to do their taxes. 

He can hear it singing its little jingle now, someone in the kitchen no doubt hanging onto the door with their head ducked in. At least it’s energy efficient. 

The bookshelves upstairs were stripped of all the faux books, their color coordinated spines replaced with a concerning number of Stephen King titles amongst Dan’s own small library and about a hundred little knick knacks. Dan thinks his boyfr- his… _Phil_ might still be a serial killer or a cannibal, or something. The horrors and thrillers on their bookshelves and in the cabinet full of DVD cases under their television definitely don’t do Phil any favors. Dan doesn’t think he’d mind, actually. Might be kind of hot, to be honest. 

He knows Phil’s just a dorky YouTuber, a quirky DIY renovator. That’s even hotter than anything else he could ever dream up. Sometimes he doubts he didn’t actually dream up Phil himself, so sure he’s going to wake up one day back in his old flat with the spiders. 

He hums low in his throat, inaudible to anyone in the house other than the two of them, as Phil scratches at his head. Phil says something low and quiet about Dan being a cat, and Dan sighs, content. 

Phil is the spider in his office now. 

They have their own, actually. Less so for work, more to have their own spaces. But they have been a little cheeky lately, getting into the routine of a shared work from home day in the middle of the week. Dan quite likes it once they find a balance. 

He can watch Phil doing whatever weird thing his brain thinks up with some pipes or reclaimed wood in the back garden through the window of his office as he tunes in and out of his computer game. And he often catches the humming accompaniment of Phil from upstairs as his fingers plonk up and down the ivory keys in the front room—the sound carrying around the house, up the open stairs, and curling into Phil’s ears like an all-encompassing hug. 

It’s a shared house. A shared life. 

The fire flickers in the front room now. No one’s tending to it, but Dan can see it through the opening of the two rooms, checking in on it every now and then. All of the impersonal mantle decor is long gone. A growing collection of framed photos, too many Yankee Candles amongst Dan’s singular Diptyque, and more of Phil’s silly little knick knacks sit atop the custom piece now. The piece that was made by Phil’s very own hands. And Dan, too—Phil always reminds him. He did help him stain it. Dan doesn’t think that counts, but Phil insists. 

Sometimes Dan thinks it’s a shame that their formal lounge is the one with the fireplace, but they couldn’t logistically move it around or add one to the cozy—slutty, slutty—lounge with the layout of the house. Phil insists it’s okay, because Dan is warm enough. 

And Phil likes to warm his toes by the fire while Dan re-learns an old skill on the piano they got on a whim at an estate sale on their first date. Dan said it was for the house, for the _show_ , but even back then he knew it was for him. 

Dan can’t see it, but he knows there’s a vase he has to keep removing from their drinking glass cupboard on the top of his new-to-him piano—the sleek glass one he specifically bought to stop Phil from bringing home the ugliest, most eclectic pieces. Dan always staring down the offending pieces with distaste until Phil gives in and pawns them off to whatever house he’s working on. 

Today it’s keeping a bundle of flowers Phil put in their basket the previous day at the shops. They were shopping together in preparation of their company today—Dan watching Phil as he gently placed them atop two long baguettes that are now all cut up and toasty, topped with tomatoes and balsamic on the coffee table in front of them—but Dan acted as if they were a surprise all the same. 

Like he always does. Even if the two of them have gotten into a habit of devoting a consistent portion of their income to purchasing any flowers they come across for the other. At the grocery store, the farmer’s market, plastic ones from the craft store. Oddly enough, Dan doesn’t think they’ve ever actually gotten any from an actual flower shop. It seems fitting, somehow. 

Maybe they will if they ever decide to have a party, but they both aren’t really into those kinds of things. They like the way they did it. 

Even if Phil’s mum still teases them about it—complains that both of her weirdo children will probably rob her of that big family wedding. Dan really shouldn’t have been so surprised when it was the first thing his own mum said to Kath the moment they were introduced an hour ago. They’ve been chatting like old friends ever since, loud laughter warming the house quicker than the fire. He thinks they’re somewhere out in the back garden now, no doubt gossiping about their horrible sons while Colin gets his final zoomies out before the show starts. 

Dan thinks he could cry, if he thinks about it too much, so he doesn’t. He lets his mind go blissfully blank, leaning further into Phil’s side. He’ll probably cry later, safer behind a closed bedroom door and the same hand in his hair. 

He’s just so happy. 

Dan plays with the band on Phil’s finger, the hand that isn’t making a mess of his hair. 

Husband still feels foreign on his tongue. It probably doesn’t help that they skipped the whole fiancé phase, but they’ve always been a bit unconventional. 

They found out it was easier to get the mortgage if they were married—so the house wasn’t Dan’s or Phil’s, but equally theirs. It really wasn’t a serious thing at first, the both of them seeing it more as a partnership for the tax benefits over any sort of _forever_. It was just a piece of paper they scribbled their signatures on a few days after filming was wrapped—rushing to take advantage of the first dibs included in their contracts. Dan thought that clause was ridiculous when he initially read it over. That didn’t last for long. 

They both know it’s a forever now. Long nights whispering confessions under the stars in the grass and their shared bed make him question if they had always known. Not some sort of love at first sight, wish made on an eyelash, soulmates bullshit- _well,_ maybe something like that. Maybe they’ve known all along, far sooner than the random Thursday evening a few weeks prior when Dan came home with one of those sleek black bags from his favorite jeweler in the city. Phil had already set out a nice dinner for them, the same words heavy on his tongue. 

Phil hasn’t taken his band off since, and Dan loves the way it feels to fiddle with it while they’re cuddled up in bed or on the sofa as they are now. Phil reminds Dan he has his own, or that he could buy him one of those fidget spinners or cubes if he’d like, but none of those are the same to Dan really. 

This is _his_ favorite thing to do. 

Rivaled only by the plethora of joke proposals they’ve amassed. “ _Will you marry me?”_ followed by a _, “Mate, we’re literally married,”_ is probably one of the most overheard conversations in their household. Dan doesn’t think it’ll ever get old, even as they do. 

Phil’s brother returns with the spare bottle of champagne from the back of the fridge and plops back down by Dan’s other side, the musical laughter of his girlfriend fills the room as he tries to climb into her tiny lap. Dan hadn’t even realized they went through the first bottle so quickly. That’s probably why he feels so pleasantly floaty. The show hasn’t even started yet. It’s probably a party foul, but Dan reckons they’ve never done anything by the books. 

He briefly wishes his own brother was here—all of Phil’s immediate family and his mum making the house feel full in a way that doesn’t make it harder to breathe—but there was something about a cat in some foreign country. Dan doesn’t know the logistics, only held on to the “next time, for sure,” before Phil swiped the phone out of his hand, animatedly asking his brother if there was a whole litter. 

Dan had to shout after Phil to remind him he’s allergic to cats. Phil definitely drowned Dan out, he’s really trying his hardest to turn this place into a zoo. 

Dan thinks he wouldn’t mind that. But, baby steps. They’re seeing if they can keep the fish alive, first. The ones outside, _and_ the one Phil snuck into Dan’s planted tank in the dining room when Dan was away at a conference. 

The dog comes running in first, jumping up onto the sofa with no doubt dirty paws, prattling around in a circle until he settles in curled up by Phil’s side. Their mothers aren’t far behind, entering the room in laughter and hands on shoulders—fast friends. 

“That dog!” His mum laughs, shaking her head. “You lot are lucky he’s left you with any of those big fish out there.” Phil gasps and Dan laughs. He can tell she’s joking, Phil’s only just met her so he gets a pass. He shares a look with his mum, a cheeky grin and a twinkle in her eye while she gives Phil’s shoulder a squeeze. 

“I’m joking with you, love,” she tells Phil. “The fish are fine.” 

“They’re quite nibbly though!” Phil’s mum chimes in. Dan’s lecture on not sticking your fingers in the pond doesn’t leave his mouth, he’s given it to Phil enough times to know it doesn’t work. The whole room laughs, Dan can feel the sound vibrate in his chest. 

Dan once again reminds himself this isn’t the time to start crying as his mum scoots Colin over to take back her spot by Phil’s side, Phil’s mum tucking back under his dad’s arm at the other end of the sofa. 

It’s a lot. 

“There’s too many people in our house,” Dan says softly, the tip of his nose brushing against Phil’s jaw, then his soft cheek to hum it into his ear. 

“Not enough dogs,” Phil says immediately. 

“There’s a dog basically in your lap.”

“No, this is a cat.” Phil emphasizes his words with a ruffle of his hand in Dan’s hair. “Also. Exactly. Not enough dogs.” 

“I think I hate you,” Dan hums, “just a little bit.” Dan plants a few kisses against his cheek. He can’t believe how open and free his chest feels, even with such a simple show of affection. 

“I know,” Phil says, all smug. “Love you too,” he adds, softly. “Now when can we get a dog?” 

“Shhhhhh!” They’re shushed by the rest of the room. 

They both look up and around with furrowed brows until it clicks at the same time when their eyes flick to the television on the wall: the show is starting. 

Having to watch himself back isn’t half the cringefest he thought it would be. At least, not entirely. 

Okay, if Dan’s being honest, he’s mostly looking at Phil. That’s probably helping. 

He wasn’t expecting to get such a clear answer though, he wasn’t expecting to get the answer or have any major realizations at all. Perhaps it isn’t a major realization, not exactly anyway. 

Dan just knows there’s not a single shred of doubt now. They have felt strongly for each other this whole time, and the feeling was not at all hate. 

It’s crystal clear as he watches the two of them on screen. In the way that he continues to watch Phil, even when he’s not the one speaking. In the way that he sees Phil look at him as if there isn’t a camera or anyone else in the room. 

Sometimes Phil does this thing. Where he looks at Dan and his mouth opens and his chest rises, but nothing comes out. Like he’s forgotten how to speak or breathe—finally looking away with a deep inhale and eyes that look at the camera as if they’re slightly out of focus. 

Dan feels that way, too. He felt it back then. He feels it right now. They’ve been gone for each other all along. 

There’s a flash of red hair out of the corner of Dan’s eye, and Cornelia’s voice pulls him out of his entirely too sappy musings. “Do you two think you would want to work together again?” 

Dan leans forward, looking from her big eyes, then back to Phil. They both, immediately, burst into uncontained laughter. As if the other’s face is the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. 

Dan reckons Phil’s might be—in a loving way really. 

“Fuck no,” they both say, in unison. 

It’s mostly the truth, Dan muses as he sits back, Phil’s socked toe running up and down his calf. He looks down at the little pugs hanging ten on their surfboards and smiles. They’re the same ones that were poking out from the bottom of Phil’s trousers last week, when he crossed a leg over the other at the big real estate auction they went to together—the one they spent the majority of their time at bidding each other up. 

Dan quickly learned holding a hand doesn’t hinder one’s ability to lift a bidding paddle, though it’s apparently looked down upon to start hitting your partner’s paddle with your own. 

Neither of them really wanted any of those houses anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for coming along on this ride!!!   
> [rebloggy on tumblr if you so please](https://sierraadeux.tumblr.com/post/629248161241841664/our-house-t-50344-words-10-chapters-written) or just come bug me i like being bugged


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